The CO2 emission regulations ask a dramatic fuel consumption reduction worldwide. In this scenario, the market penetration of BEVs and PHEVs is strictly related to their electrical driving range, which is strongly affected by the ambient conditions and the passenger comfort asking for an effective thermal management that becomes an opportunity for overcoming these barriers.
In this context, a virtual analysis comparing different cooling and heating architectures has been conducted; efficiency and costs aspects have been considered as driving factors as well as the lay-out aspects and vehicle integration constrains which drive component selection and influence the performance.
In order to perform a robust architecture comparison and obtain more reliable results, a vehicle thermal model has been developed. The model takes into account the main thermal load contributes and the simulations which have been performed considering different selected cases. The virtual analysis results and the different control strategies impact have been considered and detailed in this paper.
The result is an overview on the possible thermal management architectures useful to define new thermal management systems design guidelines directly linked with both the Battery System architecture and the e-motor lay-out within same CO2 reduction goal and new regulation compliancy.