Design of a thermal management system for a battery pack in an electric vehicle using Dymola

As the world moves toward more green and efficient means of modes of transport, electric vehicles are the most suitable and ideal choice to fulfill this requirement. Rapid developments in the field of battery technology are the main reason for their progress, but thermal management in such systems has been an area of concern for a long time. The work undertaken is to design and develop a battery management system (BMS) with a specific focus on the thermal behavior of the battery pack with varying vehicle loads as well as environmental conditions. To design an efficient BMS, one needs to model the battery behavior covering the thermal as well as electrical aspects of the battery. Apart from the battery model, a mathematical model of the electrical vehicle to mimic the various road load conditions for battery also needs to be modeled. Depending on the need for cooling based on battery behavior, the cooling circuit is modeled for the battery pack used. The entire study has been carried out using Dymola, a mathematical modeling software.     

Analytical closed-form solution of a space-vector modulated VSIfeeding an induction motor drive

The paper presents the analysis of the time response of the stator and rotor currents in induction motor fed by space-vector pulse-width modulated voltage source inverter. This mathematical model uses the Laplace and modified Z-transform. The solution is made in two steps: (a) finding the Laplace transform of the stator voltage space vectors; and (b) finding the inverse transform of the load currents (original function) using the modified Z-transform. The solution is not dependent on the number of the pulses of the PWM pattern. All the analytical waveforms were visualized from the derived relations with the program MATHCAD. Experimental results prove the feasibility of the proposed mathematical model     

An adaptive Kalman filtering based State of Charge combined estimator for electric vehicle battery pack

Ah counting is not a satisfactory method for the estimation of the State of Charge (SOC) of a battery, as the initial SOC and coulombic efficiency are difficult to measure. To address this issue, a new SOC estimation method, denoted as “AEKFAh”, is proposed. This method uses the adaptive Kalman filtering method which can avoid filtering divergence resulting from uncertainty to correct for the initial value used in the Ah counting method. A Ni/MH battery test procedure, consisting of 8.08 continuous Federal Urban Driving Schedule (FUDS) cycles, is carried out to verify the method. The SOC estimation error is 2.4% when compared with the real SOC obtained from a discharge test. This compares favorably with an estimation error of 11.4% when using Ah counting.     

Development of a lead-acid battery for a hybrid electric vehicle

In September 2000, a project reliable, highly optimized lead-acid battery (RHOLAB) started under the UK Foresight Vehicle Programme with the objective of developing an optimized lead-acid battery solution for hybrid electric vehicles. The work is based on a novel, individual, spirally-wound valve-regulated lead-acid 2 V cell optimized for HEV use and low variability. This cell is being used as a building block for the development of a complete battery pack that is managed at the cell level. Following bench testing, this battery pack is to be thoroughly evaluated by substituting it for the Ni−MH pack in a Honda Insight.The RHOLAB cell is based on the 8 Ah Hawker Cyclon cell which has been modified to have current take-off at both ends—the dual-tab design. In addition, a variant has been produced with modified cell chemistry to help deal with problems that can occur when these valve-regulated lead-acid battery (VRLA) cells operate in a partial-state-of-charge condition. The cells have been cycled to a specially formulated test cycle based on real vehicle data derived from testing the Honda Insight on the various test tracks at the Millbrook Proving Grounds in the UK. These cycling tests have shown that the lead-acid pack can be successfully cycled when subjected to the high current demands from the vehicle, which have been measured at up to 15 C on discharge and 8 C during regenerative recharging, and cycle life is looking very promising under this arduous test regime.Concurrent with this work, battery development has been taking place. It was decided early on to develop the 144 V battery as four 36 V modules. Data collection and control has been built-in and special steps taken to minimize the problems of interconnect in this complex system. Development of the battery modules is now at an advanced stage. The project plan then allows for extensive testing of the vehicle with its lead-acid battery at Millbrook so it can be compared with the benchmark tests which have already been carried out on the vehicle with its Ni−MH batteries.     

Novel operation and control of an electric vehicle aluminum/air battery system

The objective of this paper is to create a method to size battery subsystems for an electric vehicle to optimize battery performance. Optimization of performance includes minimizing corrosion by operating at a constant current density. These subsystems will allow for easy mechanical recharging. A proper choice of battery subsystem will allow for longer battery life, greater range and performance. For longer life, the current density and reaction rate should be nearly constant. The control method requires control of power by controlling electrolyte flow in battery sub modules. As power is increased more sub modules come on line and more electrolyte is needed. Solenoid valves open in a sequence to provide the required power. Corrosion is limited because there is no electrolyte in the modules not being used.     

Development of an Aluminum-laminated Lithium-ion battery for Hybrid electric vehicle application

We have developed a lithium ion cell using an aluminum-laminated sheet casing for its container, and we estimated the reliability of the heat-sealing for the casing and the life characteristic for the cell. The tensile strength of the heat-sealed margin soaked in electrolyte solvent was found to fade in proportion to square root of the soaking time. The weight loss of dummy cells was in proportion to the storage time, which implies that the solvent molecules diffuse through the aluminum-laminated sheet, namely in the layer of polypropylene resin which heat-sealed the cell. The specific energy for the prototype cell with capacity of 2 Ah was 57 Wh kg⁻¹, which was 30% higher than that of our previous cylindrical can-type cell with capacity of 3.6 Ah. The specific power was 3800 W kg⁻¹ at 25 °C, which was 25% higher than that of our previous cell. These results indicate that the mass reduction by introducing the aluminum-laminated casing enhanced the specific energy and power effectively without any loss of reliability or life characteristics.     

Direct field oriented control scheme for space vector modulated AC/DC/AC converter fed induction motor

This paper investigates a Luenberger flux observer with speed adaptation for a direct field oriented control of an induction motor. An improved method of speed estimation that operates on the principle of speed adaptive flux and current observer has been proposed. An observer is basically an estimator that uses a plant model and a feedback loop with measured stator voltage and current. Simulation results show that the proposed direct field oriented control with the proposed observer provides good performance dynamic characteristics. The induction motor is fed by an indirect power electronics converter. This indirect converter is controlled by a sliding mode technique that enables minimization of harmonics introduced by the line converter, as well as the control of the power factor and DC-link voltage. The robustness of the overall system is studied using simulation for different operating modes and varied parameters.     

Energy management strategy based on driving pattern recognition for a dual‐motor battery electric vehicle

To improve the economic performance of dual‐motor battery electric vehicles, a novel driving pattern recognition–based energy management strategy (NDPREMS) is proposed in this paper. The NDPREMS firstly employs principal component analysis method to reduce the dimension of characteristic parameters of driving patterns and uses hierarchical cluster method for classifying driving patterns to construct a database of typical driving patterns, based on which a driving pattern recognizer is achieved using generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and the accuracy of this recognizer reaches 96.08%. In order to reasonably allocate the power between two motors, on the basis of rule‐based energy management strategy (REMS), a dynamic programming–based energy management strategy (DPEMS) under typical driving patterns is formulated. By doing so, the logic thresholds of REMS are optimized, and thus, the NDPREMS is achieved. Comparison simulations of control effect concerning the REMS, DPEMS, and NDPREMS are performed under typical driving patterns. Results indicate that the proposed NDPREMS exhibits greater energy conservation compared with REMS, the economic improvement under urban driving pattern is the most obvious at 11.04%, the improvement under the comprehensive test driving pattern is 5.65%, and the performance of the NDPREMS is similar to that of DPEMS.     

Design of a high frequency Inductively Coupled Power Transfer system for electric vehicle battery charge

The development of a high autonomy purely electrical public mean of transportation is not currently viable because the required energy implies a very high battery weight. However, this weight would be significantly reduced if these batteries could be charged at the bus stops along the route, for instance using a contact-less power transfer system. An ICPT (Inductive Coupling Power Transfer) system with a large air gap has been developed and built for an electric vehicle battery charger. The practical sizing, the best compensation topology and the operational frequency have been studied in order to obtain maximum efficiency. The study has been focused on defining the prototype implementation process, validating the theoretical results and analyzing the influence of frequency deviation with respect to the resonant frequency and the effect of gap variation and misalignment in the behaviour of the system.     

The challenge to the automotive battery industry: the battery has to become an increasingly integrated component within the vehicle electric power system

During the time that the automotive battery was considered to be just a passive component in a vehicle electric power system, the battery industry's answer to all new challenges was constructive improvements. The emerging requirements of even higher function reliability cannot, however be met this way. A battery manufacturer of today has to give recommendations for the appropriate choice of the electrical architecture and has to design batteries that suit best the requirements. In addition, manufactures have to be engaged in the technology of battery management, of battery monitoring and state detection, and performance of prediction under future operation conditions. During service on-board a vehicle, battery performance undergoes significant changes, e.g., loss of storage capability, increase in internal resistance, and changes in voltage characteristics. These ageing processes have to be considered when the electrical architecture is being designed and management strategies are being formulated. Battery monitoring and state detection must be able to identify and quantify battery degradation. Moreover, performance prediction as well as management strategies have to be corrected on account of the changing battery characteristics.     

Numerical analysis of an energy storage system based on a metal hydride hydrogen tank and a lithium-ion battery pack for a plug-in fuel cell electric scooter

This work investigates on the performance of a hybrid energy storage system made of a metal hydride tank for hydrogen storage and a lithium-ion battery pack, specifically conceived to replace the conventional battery pack in a plug-in fuel cell electric scooter. The concept behind this solution is to take advantage of the endothermic hydrogen desorption in metal hydrides to provide cooling to the battery pack during operation.The analysis is conducted numerically by means of a finite element model developed in order to assess the thermal management capabilities of the proposed solution under realistic operating conditions.The results show that the hybrid energy storage system is effectively capable of passively controlling the temperature of the battery pack, while enhancing at the same time the on-board storage energy density. The maximum temperature rise experienced by the battery pack is around 12 °C when the thermal management is provided by the hydrogen desorption in metal hydrides, against a value above 30 °C obtained for the same case without thermal management. Moreover, the hybrid energy storage system provides the 16% of the total mass of hydrogen requested by the fuel cell stack during operation, which corresponds to a significant enhancement of the hydrogen storage capability on-board of the vehicle.     

Intelligent optimization methodology of battery pack for electric vehicles: A multidisciplinary perspective

Past studies focused on proposing new materials for batteries components, state of health (SOH) prediction, thermal design, equivalent circuit modeling, and so on. Those studies have been implemented on individual basis on a single battery or battery pack. However, there is hardly any research found that encompasses all the multidisciplinary aspects (such as materials, SOH, intelligent configuration [assembly], thermal design, mechanical safety, and recycling of materials and pack) simultaneously for the battery pack design of electric vehicles. This research article proposes a synthetic methodology for an advanced design of battery pack and its components by incorporating optimal scenario of materials selection for battery electrodes, SOH estimation, configurations (assembly) of cells, thermal (air and liquid cooling) design, battery pack casing mechanical safety, and recycling aspects of battery and battery pack. The problem is divided into the several parts and methodology for each is proposed. Cumulative advantages of the methodology with six future critical directions are discussed in the end.     

A genetic algorithm optimized ANN-based MPPT algorithm for a stand-alone PV system with induction motor drive

Artificial neural network (ANN) based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm makes use of the advantages of ANNs such as noise rejection capability and not requiring any prior knowledge of the physical parameters relating to PV system. This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) optimized ANN-based MPPT algorithm implemented in a stand-alone PV system with direct-coupled induction motor drive. The major objective of this design is to eliminate dc–dc converter and its accompanying losses. Implementing off-line ANN in DSP needs optimization of ANN structure to obtain an ideal size. GA optimization was used in this study to determine neuron numbers in multi-layer perceptron neural network. Another objective of this work is to prevent the necessity of the trade-off between the tracking speed and the oscillations around the maximum power point. Hence, varying step size is used in MPPT algorithm and PI-controller is adopted for simple implementation. Simulation and experimental results have been used to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Parameter analysis of a practical lithium- and sodium-air electric vehicle battery

For electric vehicles (EV) having a 500 km range between charges, there is a need to develop smaller and lower-cost batteries. Lithium-air has the potential to deliver a step change in the specific energy of rechargeable lithium batteries. In order to develop a practical, safe, smaller and lower-cost lithium and sodium-air rechargeable EV battery it is necessary to eliminate the formation of dendritic deposits (on charge), increase the current density up to 100 mA cm⁻² (or reducing cell DC resistance to less than 10 Ω cm²) and change the oxygen-discharge product from peroxide to oxide. We suggest here a novel concept, namely to replace the metallic lithium anode by liquid sodium and to operate the sodium-oxygen cell above the sodium melting point (97.8 °C). In this report we studied the deposition-dissolution process of sodium in polymer electrolytes at 105 °C and we present, for the first time, preliminary results that demonstrate the feasibility of running a liquid-sodium-oxygen cell with polymer electrolytes at above 100 °C.     

Multi‐objective design optimization for mini‐channel cooling battery thermal management system in an electric vehicle

Lithium‐ion battery packs have been generally used as the power source for electric vehicles. Heat generated during discharge and limited space in the battery pack may bring safety issues and negative effect on the battery pack. Battery thermal management system is indispensable since it can effectively moderate the temperature rise by using a simple system, thereby improving the safety of battery packs. However, the comprehensive investigation on the optimal design of battery thermal management system with liquid cooling is still rare. This article develops a comprehensive methodology to design an efficient mini‐channel cooling system, which comprises thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and structural analysis. The developed methodology mainly contains four steps: the design of the mini‐channel cooling system and computational fluid dynamics analysis, the design of experiments and selection of surrogate models, formulation of optimization model, and multi‐objective optimization for selection of the optimum scheme for mini‐channel cooling battery thermal management system. The findings in the study display that the temperature difference decreases from 8.0878 to 7.6267 K by 5.70%, the standard temperature deviation decreases from 2.1346 to 2.1172 K by 0.82%, and the pressure drop decreases from 302.14 to 167.60 Pa by 44.53%. The developed methodology could be extended for industrial battery pack design process to enhance cooling effect thermal performance and decrease power consumption.     

Design optimization of electric vehicle battery cooling plates for thermal performance

The performance of high-energy battery cells utilized in electric vehicles (EVs) is greatly improved by adequate temperature control. An efficient thermal management system is also desirable to avoid diverting excessive power from the primary vehicle functions. In a battery cell stack, cooling can be provided by including cooling plates: thin metal fabrications which include one or more internal channels through which a coolant is pumped. Heat is conducted from the battery cells into the cooling plate, and transported away by the coolant. The operating characteristics of the cooling plate are determined in part by the geometry of the channel; its route, width, length, etc. In this study, a serpentine-channel cooling plate is modeled parametrically and its characteristics assessed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Objective functions of pressure drop, average temperature, and temperature uniformity are defined and numerical optimization is carried out by allowing the channel width and position to vary. The optimization results indicate that a single design can satisfy both pressure and average temperature objectives, but at the expense of temperature uniformity.     

Remodeling of a commercial plug-in battery electric vehicle to a hybrid configuration with a PEM fuel cell

In the present research, a commercial battery-powered pure electric vehicle was suitably modified to convert it into a hybrid one integrating a PEMFC stack. The hydrogen supply system to the stack included a passive recirculation system based on a Ventury-type ejector. Besides, in order to achieve an optimum operation of the PEMFC stack, a discrete state machine model was considered in its control system. The inclusion of a rehabilitation operating mode prevented the stack from possible failures, increasing its lifetime. It was verified that for the rated operating point when supplying power to the vehicle (2.5 kW) the hydrogen consumption decreased, and the actual efficiency (47.9%) PEMFC was increased close to 1%. Field tests performed demonstrate that the range of the hybrid electric vehicle was increased by 78% when compared to the one of the original battery electric car. Also, under the tested experimental conditions in hybrid mode, 34% of the total energy demanded by the electric machine of the vehicle was supplied by the PEMFC stack.     

Experimental investigation on the dynamic performance of a hybrid PEM fuel cell/battery system for lightweight electric vehicle application

A hybrid system combining a 2 kW air-blowing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack and a lead–acid battery pack is developed for a lightweight cruising vehicle. The dynamic performances of this PEMFC system with and without the assistance of the batteries are systematically investigated in a series of laboratory and road tests. The stack current and voltage have timely dynamic responses to the load variations. Particularly, the current overshoot and voltage undershoot both happen during the step-up load tests. These phenomena are closely related to the charge double-layer effect and the mass transfer mechanisms such as the water and gas transport and distribution in the fuel cell. When the external load is beyond the range of the fuel cell system, the battery immediately participates in power output with a higher transient discharging current especially in the accelerating and climbing processes. The DC–DC converter exhibits a satisfying performance in adaptive modulation. It helps rectify the voltage output in a rigid manner and prevent the fuel cell system from being overloaded. The dynamic responses of other operating parameters such as the anodic operating pressure and the inlet and outlet temperatures are also investigated. The results show that such a hybrid system is able to dynamically satisfy the vehicular power demand.