Thermal Vehicle-Concept Study Using Co-Simulation for Optimizing Driving Range

Heating in winter can reduce the maximum driving range of electric vehicles by about 50%. Therefore, thermal management is currently a big issue in this sector. This contribution shows the development and implementation of an entire vehicle model which is capable of investigating novel concepts for increasing the maximum driving range of electric vehicles. Therefore, a co-simulation interface between two simulation tools is created. The developed virtual environment is then used to simulate and optimize the energy efficiency of an electric reference vehicle by investigating different thermal management concepts.

I. Introduction

Simulative approaches are commonly used in the automotive sector to optimize vehicle components and to investigate the operating behavior of entire vehicles. By using simulations instead of prototype tests, a lot of time and money can be saved especially in the design phase. As this process requires knowledge from different physical domains, implementing an appropriate simulation model in only one single simulation tool which covers all essential aspects is often not possible. In order to overcome this problem co-simulation can be used [1].