With an objective of improving the range as well as other safety and comfort aspects, thermal management becomes increasingly important in the development of electrified vehicles both at the component as well as system level. The considerable increase in complexity of the thermal management system and its tighter interactions with the complete vehicle is driving an increasing trend towards system simulation compared to expensive testing.
At the system level, different sub-systems interact with each other at varying extents. An example of one such strong interaction is between the coolant and AC circuits using battery chillers. Thermal management system simulation models must be capable of simulating such interactive systems.
At the component level, ensuring the efficacy of the several components used in these intricately linked systems becomes increasingly important. An accurate prediction of temperature distribution inside the battery pack is essential to avoid damaging situations such as thermal runaway. An integrated approach of 1D-flow inside the cooling plates combined with 3D-thermal analysis of battery cells and cooling plates in GT-SUITE is described in this study.
Also, a new predictive electrochemical and thermal battery models to analyze and optimize both component and system level behavior is described. This allows selection of cell chemistry and design in addition to providing heat rejection values for design of the cooling system. Aging predictions at both the cycle and calendar time scales are described that consider effects of varying environmental and operating conditions.
After the e-powertrain, the HVAC compressor is the largest consumer of electrical energy. For optimizing compressor power consumption without compromising on human thermal comfort attention is focused on localized cooling inside the cabin. This paper outlines an integrated co-simulation approach, that allows an investigation of the trade-off between passenger comfort and driving range, or to develop smart controls of the HVAC system.