Development of a virtual test rig to evaluate thermal management of a battery-electric vehicle under a heating-cooling mode

This work presents a systematic approach to developing a virtual test rig for evaluating the thermal performance of battery electric vehicles. A mass-produced battery-electric sport utility vehicle is tested in a chassis dynamometer, and the measured vehicle performance data are used as boundary conditions for the complete vehicle model. The detailed lithium-ion battery (LIB) pack model with its cooling system was developed and calibrated with various transient driving cycle data. The HVAC model is developed using a simplified controller to maintain the cabin temperature at 25 °C during both heating and cooling modes. The complete vehicle model is used to compare the thermal performances of the BEV under cabin heating and cooling modes for various transient driving cycles. The simulated results show that using an external cabin air circulation model can reduce the battery energy consumption and dissipated heat by 9.9% and 2.4%, respectively.