Thermal and cooling systems modeling of powertrain for a plug -in parallel-through-the-road hybrid electric vehicle

Thermal modeling and control play an ever increasing role with hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) design and development for improving overall vehicle energy efficiency, and to account for additional thermal loading from electric powertrain components such as electric motor, motor controller and battery pack. This thesis presents a complete development process for an efficient modeling approach with integrated control strategy for the thermal management of plug-in HEV in a parallel-through-the road (PTTR) architecture, adopted by Wayne State University Hybrid Warriors for their Department of Energy's EcoCAR2 Plugging in to the Future Competition. The frameworks of this project include simulating the thermal behavior of major HEV powertrain components using system oriented models suitable for real-time vehicle operation. A comprehensive control algorithm is established in a Thermal Manager, as part of vehicle supervisory controller. Finally, the proposed model is tested through realistic driving conditions to demonstrate reliability.