Design of Vehicle Cooling System Architecture for a Heavy Duty Series-Hybrid Electric Vehicle Using Numerical System Simulations

In this study, numerical simulations of the vehicle cooling system and the vehicle powertrain system of a virtual heavy duty tracked series hybrid electric vehicle (SHEV) is developed to investigate the thermal responses and power consumptions of the cooling system. The output data from the powertrain system simulation are fed into the cooling system simulation to provide the operating conditions of powertrain components. Three different cooling system architectures constructed with different concepts are modeled and the factors that affect the performance and power consumption of each cooling system are identified and compared with each other. The results show that the cooling system architecture of the SHEV should be developed considering various cooling requirements of powertrain components, power management strategy, performance, parasitic power consumption, and the effect of driving conditions. It is also demonstrated that a numerical model of the SHEV cooling system is an efficient tool to assess design concepts and architectures of the system during the early stage of system development.