Multiphysics thermal and NVH modeling: Integrated simulation of a switched reluctance motor drivetrain for an electric vehicle

The design process of an electric vehicle introduces several new performance objectives, such as energy consumption, thermal management and acoustic behavior. In this paper, an integrated multiphysics design approach has been developed for the simulation of switched reluctance based drivetrain systems. This kind of modeling is able to aid in the virtual prototyping of an electric vehicle by allowing the investigation of critical component choices and system parameters and how they affect the vehicle overall performance. Some simulation results are presented, where the activation angles of the motor are optimized with two different objectives, and their effect on the system's thermal and acoustic behavior is shown.