Efficient Simulation of Thermal Management Systems for BEV

The design of vehicle thermal management systems (VTMSs) for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is a challenging task, because many degrees of freedom exist and the individual powertrain components operate in a complex thermal interaction. Against this background, all influences from the coolant flow itself, the thermal properties and the efficiency of the powertrain components as well as the longitudinal dynamics and vehicle performance specifications have to be considered. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a simulation framework, to quickly model to any desired VTMS architecture and simulate with great computational efficiency. For this task a one-dimensional finite volume method (FVM) approach and simplified thermal BEV powertrain component models based on thermal networks are presented. The simulation framework can be adapted to different VTMS architectures using a script-based definition of interconnections between the components, eliminating the need for changes to the model itself. The simulation framework is validated on the vehicle level, using a custom measurement setup.