Maintenance & Repair Cost Calculation and Assessment of Resale Value for Different Alternative Commercial Vehicle Powertrain Technologies

For detailed evaluation of the Total Cost of Ownership, expenditures for Maintenance & Repair as well as the resale value are important to consider and should not be neglected. However, information on Maintenance & Repair costs as well as residual values for commercial vehicles with alternative powertrains is missing and data on this issue is rare. There is a lack of information and consolidated knowledge. In order to enable a holistic cost assessment for commercial vehicles, a comprehensive M&R cost model was developed by the use of a bottom-up approach, considering 46 individually assessed components regarding maintenance and 24 individually assessed components regarding repair as well as different inspections. It enables specific M&R cost calculations for different alternative commercial vehicle powertrain technologies of different vehicle sizes. In addition, an approach in order to assess the resale value for different alternative commercial vehicle powertrain technologies is introduced. Exemplary results are presented for different powertrain technologies of a tractor-trailer in long-haulage operation with a gross vehicle weight of 40 ton and a rigid truck in urban operation with a gross vehicle weight of 12 ton. Altogether, by the use of the M&R methodology and the resale value approach required data in order to enable a holistic cost assessment for commercial vehicles can be provided

Free-piston linear generator and the development of a solid lubrication system

The free piston linear generator is a new electromechanical generator. It converts chemical energy into electrical energy by means of a combustion process, a linear generator and a gas spring. Thereby the technology aims to have better properties than other electromechanical generators. Therefore this publication deals with the explanation of the concept, the characteristics of a free piston linear generator and one of the challenges in the development. In order to use a port scavenging the emission issue is the challenge and has to be solved. One possible solution is the use of solid lubricants to substitute motor oil. The development methodology and one aspect of the development will be explained

Competitive Cost Analysis of Alternative Powertrain Technologies.

This paper examines the cost competitiveness of different electrified propulsion technologies from hybrid cars to full battery electric vehicles in the time horizon 2010 to 2020. The assessment shows that the current TCO gaps for alternative drivetrains will increasingly converge over time mainly driven by decreasing production cost. However, the cost-efficiency of different powertrain architectures depends highly on the mileage a user expects to drive per year. In the mid-run, hybrid electric vehicles (especially with external charging) will be an attractive option in particular for users with high annual mileages, who can benefit from the low operating cost of EVs in combination with unlimited driving range. The analysis concludes that there will be a variety of competing drivetrain architectures in the market, which in turn leads to increased risk and complex decision making for the portfolio of automotive OEMs and suppliers

Comparison of energy consumption and costs of different HEVs and PHEVs in European and American context

This paper will analyse on the one hand the potential of Plug in Hybrid electric Vehicles to significantly reduce fuel consumption and displace it torward various primary energies thanks to the electricity sector. On the other hand the total cost of ownership of two different PHEV architectures will be compared to a conventional cehicle and a HEV without external charging

New approach for a comprehensive method for urban vehicle concepts with electric powertrain and their necessary vehicle structures

By the strict discussions regarding energy saving and the goal to reduce CO2 emissions to 95g CO2/km, which is specified for the year 2020, [1] there is a keen demand for lighter and lightweight designed automotive structures to support the energy saving targets. In view of a holistic approach and also to prospectively meet the requirements of the automotive sector, beside the previously mentioned challenges, economic and production-orientated aspects, as well as joining technologies, within the scope of multi-material design, have to be considered to realize a great leap forward medium to large-scale productions. To achieve these goals, a comprehensive method for urban vehicle concepts with electric powertrain and their necessary vehicle structures is presented. The dimensions and packaging of the presented vehicle is based on demands of a future urban vehicle with space for four occupants including baggage, steerable front system wheels and a rear axle including an electric powertrain. At the beginning of the method the relevant user requirements, e.g. space for persons and baggage, range for the urban vehicle are defined. In addition, input variables are discharged through the state of the art of electric vehicles. It is also an important point in this step to look on further requirements such as crash requirements or requirements for electrical components in the vehicle design. With the defined requirements the package of the urban car has to be defined. Two paths are determined to a geometrically and a simulative way. The simulative consideration is limited to the vehicle longitudinal dynamics, thus a rough dimensioning of the drive components is derived. The outputs of the simulation are the performance measures which are then converted into components for the overall model for dimensioning for example electric motor or battery. The geometric design phase begins with the positioning of the occupants in the passenger compartment and ergonomic layout. Based on this conception of the complete vehicle, various FEM optimizations (topology, topography, size) are carried out for the body in white in order to construct structures towards individual (functional) components/modules. This top-down approach raises the opportunity to extract constructive innovations, which must be integrated within this early concept phase, also to reduce costs when aiming to development of a series product. With this holistic approach a load-specific optimized structural design is virtually generated and evaluated, and also an outlook on dynamic loads (crash behavior) is given. The focus here is on the potential in innovations by the definition of novel package alignments in combination with the useful application of multi-material-design method, resulting in a light modular vehicle structure

Automated generation of physical surrogate vehicle models for crash optimization

A challenge in the design and optimization of vehicle structures is the high computational costs required for crash analysis. In this paper an automated model generation for simplified vehicle crash models is presented. The considered crash load cases are the US NCAP (100 %, 56 km/h), the Euro NCAP (40 %, 64 km/h) and the IIHS Small Overlap (25 %, 64 km/h). The generation of the physical surrogate vehicle models is based on different sub-steps which were automated using a process chain. With this process chain it is possible to evaluate very efficiently the influence of structural modifications on the global crash behavior. During the model generation the crash behavior of the surrogate model is directly compared with the full vehicle model to enable a direct assessment of the model quality. Since the interface, where the model is cut, is an important factor for the obtained correlation, different interface positions were analysed. With obtained solutions it is possible to identify the interface position, which fulfils the required correlation by a given computational time. Additionally, the interface discretisation is analyzed to identify the model configuration with the highest correlation. This investigation was performed for three different vehicle models

Stand-Alone Battery Thermal Management for Fast Charging of Electric Two Wheelers - Integrated Busbar Cooling

This paper presents a thermal interface for cylindrical cells using busbar-integrated cooling channels. This interface is available due to the use of a stand-alone refrigerant circuit for the thermal management of the battery. A stand-alone refrigerant circuit offers performance and efficiency increases compared to state-of-the-art battery thermal management systems. This can be achieved by increasing the evaporation temperature to the requirements of the Li-ion cells and the use of alternative refrigerants. The solution proposed in this paper is defined for electric two-wheelers, as the thermal management of these vehicles is currently insufficient for fast charging where high heat losses occur. Three channel patterns for the integrated busbar cooling were examined regarding their thermal performance to cool the li-ion cells of a 16p14s battery pack during fast charging. A method of coupling correlation-based heat transfer and pressure drop with thermal finite element method (FEM) simulations was developed. The symmetric channel pattern offers a good compromise between battery temperatures and homogeneity, as well as the best volumetric and gravimetric energy densities on system level. Average cell temperatures of 22 °C with a maximum temperature spread of 8 K were achieved

On the well posedness of the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura formulation of Einstein's field equations

We give a well posed initial value formulation of the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura form of Einstein's equations with gauge conditions given by a Bona-Masso like slicing condition for the lapse and a frozen shift. This is achieved by introducing extra variables and recasting the evolution equations into a first order symmetric hyperbolic system. We also consider the presence of artificial boundaries and derive a set of boundary conditions that guarantee that the resulting initial-boundary value problem is well posed, though not necessarily compatible with the constraints. In the case of dynamical gauge conditions for the lapse and shift we obtain a class of evolution equations which are strongly hyperbolic and so yield well posed initial value formulations

Dynamic bending behaviour of magnesium alloy rectangular thin-walled beams filled with polyurethane foam

This study investigates the load-deflection curve characteristics and deformation/fracture modes and energy absorption capacity for polyurethane foam-filled magnesium alloy AZ31B rectangular thin-walled beams under dynamic three-point bending loads, and compares these characteristics with those for mild steel DC04 beams. Different foam-filled AZ31B beams with a variation of foam density (0.05 g/cm3, 0.20 g/cm3 and 0.30 g/cm3) were fabricated through several manufacturing processes: cold bending, tungsten inert gas welding, cathodic dip painting and polyurethane foam injection. It was found that 0.20 g/cm3 and 0.30 g/cm3 foams stabilised the cross sections of the thin-walled AZ31B beams and no inward folds occurred during the bending process, which resulted in significantly higher load carrying capacity than the empty beam. A nonlinear non-monotonic relationship between the specific energy absorption and the foam density was found for the foam-filled AZ31B beams. The AZ31B beam filled with 0.20 g/cm3 foam reached the highest specific energy absorption; moreover, it absorbed nearly 33% more energy and reached nearly 2.9 times higher specific energy absorption than the foam-filled DC04 beam filled with the same foam, although the former one was nearly 54% lighter. This outperformance is associated to the high work hardening rate of AZ31B in compression, where more material is involved in plastic deformation. However, the foam-filled AZ31B beams tend to fracture at the compression and tension walls, because the foam exhibits brittle fracture behaviour in tension and AZ31B exhibits low ductility in compression and plane-strain conditions, which limits their energy absorption at a larger deflection