Lead Acid Battery Parameters Identification, Modelling and Testing Applied for a Hybrid-Electric Funicular Concept

The present paper introduces a new concept in the field of vehicle electrification, referring not to a cargo or passenger one but to a funicular. The latter’s operation is normally based on an internal combustion diesel engine. In order to align such an application with the current trends in field of electrification, a project was developed to develop a hybrid solution. The requirements were based on the philosophy that during its operation, the funicular can recover a large quantity of energy during log’s downhill, as the system actually must operate as brake. Studies were engaged when decisioning on the chemistry, Li ion or Lead Acid. The latter one handshake well with operating cycles of a funicular as well as low temperature exposure in forest has less impact on the battery performances. Even more, safety-wise, the Lead Acid cells are not susceptible for fire in case of faults, that is mandatory regulation in forest exploitations. To design and study this system, a complex simulation environment had to be developed, mixing Simcenter Amesim software (for the mechanics) with MATLAB Simulink (for the batteries). Nevertheless, precise battery parameters identification and modelling required processes that are detailed in the paper.