Concept design of electric cruise and startability axles for long haul heavy vehicles to maximise driving range

Paper in proceeding, 2021

Electrification of commercial heavy vehicles hasled to the offer of different electric drive-based powertrainarchitectures, most of them with the adaptation of the dieselengine based architecture. Due to the limited driving rangepossible, optimal configuration of the powertrain becomes avital task with the battery as the energy source, which alsotakes a significant portion of payload capacity. A modularand distributed powertrain architecture using separate cruiseand startability axles is introduced in this paper with theaim to maximise driving range. The concept is developed andevaluated using a joint hardware and control design frameworkfor a target vehicle combination of 36 tonnes over a typicalregional long haul drive cycle using simulations. Sensitivitystudy of gear ratios and motor sizes with vehicle targetrequirements is performed to identify the optimal configurationfor the powertrain concept. The simulation results show thatby configuring around50%of the total electric machine powerto the cruise axle and choosing a gear ratio between 12-13, therange capability is maximised, while satisfying startability andcruise mode operations.