Research Of Semi-physical Experiment Platform Of Automobile Thermal Management Systems

Thermal management is critical for automobile fuel economization and safety, as well as environment protection. It is a main technical barrier of automobile R&D, especially for FCV (Fuel cell vehicle) and other electric vehicles. Experiment platform of thermal management systems can help us break through the key technology of thermal management system design integration and manufacturing integration. Thermal management objects and structures vary with different vehicle. Flexibility of the experiment platform, capability of simulating characteristics of different thermal management objects and systems, is a key problem.A semi-physical simulation experiment platform, which includes a physical subsystem and a numeric subsystem, was designed. With the combination of the two subsystems, the platform can simulate different thermal management objects and structures.Mathematical model and arithmetic of the numeric system was developed based on the principle of thermal fluid dynamics.With the numeric system, A Fuel Cell stack thermal management system was investigated and the result agreed well with the measured data.With the numeric simulation system the physical simulation system was analyzed. The effects of the ducts length and system thermal capacity on the system steady and transient characteristics were investigated in detail. The control strategy was investigated as well to guide the operation of physical system.