Comprehensive Vehicle Level Thermal Management Simulation Platform: Development and Applications

In modern vehicles, effective thermal management is crucial for regulating temperatures across various components and sub-systems, ensuring optimal performance, efficiency, safety, and passenger comfort. As the industry shifts towards reducing carbon emissions, powertrain electrification—encompassing electric and hybrid vehicles—has emerged as a prominent trend. This transition introduces complexities, as the powertrain system must now precisely control the temperatures of not only traditional components but also batteries, power electronics, and motors. Typically, the performance of thermal management systems is evaluated only after the physical prototypes are developed for testing, specially through summer and winter road tests. These development and validations at the later stage of the development process significantly increases development risks and costs. To address these challenges, a comprehensive vehicle level thermal management simulation platform is essential. This platform should encompass all components and subsystems of the thermal management system, allowing for performance simulation under various test conditions and real driving scenarios. By integrating full control of the thermal system into the simulation, both individual components and subsystems can be designed and optimized through virtual assessments. Additionally, vehicle technical specifications can be evaluated against various driving conditions, enabling potential control strategy optimizations. This paper outlines the establishment of such a simulation platform, detailing a range of component-level and system-level models, along with control and calibration specifics. Validations were conducted under summer road test conditions and WLTC at an ambient temperature of 38°C. The paper also discusses applications in actuators control optimization for energy consumption reduction, assessment of direct cooling design for battery packs using refrigerants, and assessment of traction motor temperatures during continuous uphill starts.