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Global climate change is a major concern worldwide and most refrigerants which are being used today are Hydro-fluorocarbon (HFC), which are potent green house gases. With the rising popularity of electric vehicles, there has been an increased demand for effective and efficient cooling system, not only for cabin cooling for bus but for battery pack Thermal Management Systems also. This has led to an increase in the refrigerant amount and it is even more in case of commercial electric vehicle. Alternate refrigerant with low global warming potential like R1234yf (GWP = 4), Co2 (GWP = 1), R- 152a (GWP = 124) emerged to cater this challenge; But due to their high cost, risk regarding flammability and relative performance, some researchers found secondary loop cooling system as the next possible solution.

In view of the stringent emission norms laid out by government of India, BSVI Engines are with additional heat rejection requirements with limited packaging space for Cooling system. An appropriate Radiator, Charge Air Cooler and Fan is decided within the available packaging space based on the Engine heat rejection needs. In this paper an approach is defined to arrive at a Cooling system architecture which is very compact in design and packaged between the Engine and Front member in a limited space. Modelling is done in Thermal simulation software KULI. Good correlation is achieved between simulation to test results.

Enriched ventilation and driver assistance systems which plays vital role in human thermal comfort and safety, are now necessities for the whole automotive sector. For faster cabin thermal comfort, air circulation around occupant’s body reveals higher cabin comfort index. In India natural and forced ventilation system is predominantly used in commercial vehicles as an economical solution for achieving interim cabin comfort over air conditioning system. Presently used forced ventilation system consist of electrically driven blower motor to remove stale air around human body which is adding alternator load and thus affects fuel economy. Remarkably, 22% of such auxiliary electrical load is taken by electrical components from engine generated power. In order to enhance cabin thermal comfort and conceivably reduce power usage, an effective air flow control system is need of hour.

In India, around 70 million people travel by public transport buses. With rising air pollution across cities, there is a need to safeguard passengers from inhaling polluted air. Contaminants in such polluted air could be fine to coarse dust (2.5 micron to 100 micron), exhaust gases (oxide of sulphur, nitrogen and carbon), total volatile organic compounds, bacteria and viruses arising out of covid-19 pandemic. Passengers commuting in buses are continuously inhaling air that is re-circulating through the Air Conditioning system (AC) and also comes in contact with multiple co-passengers and touch points. This air potentially carries a high dose of contaminants and inhalation of such air can lead to health issues. Vehicle manufacturers intend to provide clean air inside the vehicle cabin by configuring various Air Purification systems (AP) which reduce air contaminants in the closed space of a cabin.

Commercial electric vehicle air conditioning system keeps occupants comfortable, but at the expense of the energy used from the battery of vehicle. Passengers around the world are increasingly requesting buses with HVAC/AC capabilities. There is a need to optimise current air conditioning systems taking into account packaging, cost, and performance limits due to the rising demand for cooling and heating globally. Major elements contributing to heat ingress are traction motor, front firewall, windshield & side glasses and bus body parts. These elements contribute to the bus’s poor cooling and lack of passenger comfort. This topic refers to the reduction of the heat ingress through usage of different glass technology like IR Cut & solar green glass with different types of coating.

Battery cooling system plays a vital role in all kind of Electric vehicles. For Indian applications where vehicles will be subjected to slower speeds due to heavy traffic, higher ambient conditions and excess loading pattern in commercial vehicles, designing a Battery cooling system (BCS) is a challenging task. There are various options for cooling of battery i.e. Natural air cooled, forced air cooled, indirect cooling. This paper discusses about indirect coolant based cooling of battery of a small commercial vehicle. Battery cooling system works on the principle of Indirect cooling with the combination of vapor compression cycle and water-coolant mixture path. R134a gas used for VCRS system and for cooling system used 50-50% water glycol coolant mixture. For this type of battery cooling system typically There are challenges of packaging of various battery cooling parts, hose routing, pipe bends which may result in de aeration issues.

In today’s world, due to fast depletion of fossil fuel and the increasing CO2 emission, the need to switch to alternate energy sources are higher. Stringent norms on exhaust emissions in IC Engine vehicles implies, very complex after treatment systems. Already many OEMs have refined their development strategies towards phasing out of IC Engines and bringing in Fuel Cell vehicles, Battery Electric Vehicles and Hydrogen IC Engine vehicles. Focus is on Hydrogen for Long Haul vehicles. In this paper cooling system design is demonstrated for Fuel Cell, Battery and Power Electronics system in a Heavy Duty Fuel Cell Electric Truck. Radiator and Fans are selected based on the overall heat rejection and Coolant inlet temperature requirements of components. Cooling system circuit and pump is decided to meet the coolant flow rate targets. High temperature cooling system and Low temperature cooling system are explained in detail. Thermal simulation is done using simulation software KULI.

Air-conditioning and Refrigeration systems are widely used in many industries for cooling and preservation, and the evaporator is a crucial component responsible for heat absorption. The choice of refrigerant has a significant impact on the evaporator's performance, affecting the overall efficiency of the system. This paper investigates the effect of three common refrigerants, R134a, R407c, and R1234yf, on evaporator performance. A comparative analysis was performed using the conventional air-conditioning system consisting of a compressor, condenser, expansion valve, and evaporator. The evaporator performance was evaluated based on the cooling capacity, Refrigerant Side Pressure Drop (RSPD) and Superheat (SH). The results show that evaporator has highest cooling capacity with R134a, followed by R407C and R1234yf. In comparison to R134a, R1234yf had the lowest refrigerating effect followed by R407C.

AC system provides the human comfort inside the cabin of a vehicle but at the expense of consumption of energy from the vehicle. On a global perspective for the bus segment, there is an increased demand for cooling in tropical countries. Optimization needs to be done in existing AC systems w.r.t packaging, cost & performance constraints. Major elements contributing to heat ingress are engine hood, front firewall, windshield & side glasses and bus body parts. Due to these reasons inadequate passenger comfort and poor cool down performance of the vehicle is observed. This paper refers to the reduction of heat ingress through different DOE (Design of Experiment) in the area of design & validation for duct & vent layout, insulation, glass & paint technology, evaporator blowers. The new duct design has been evaluated using a CFD tool by varying various parameters to generate desired output. The integrated use of the modifications was found significant improvement at vehicle level.

Truck maneuverability is one of the phenomena, which is considered in development stage of a commercial vehicle chassis structure. Torsional stiffness is one of the important properties of the chassis structure that significantly affects vehicle dynamic characteristics such as handling and rollover. The torsional stiffness is preferred to be as high as possible since lower torsional stiffness may cause resonance, vibration, poor handling, and rollover. Torsional stiffness can be improved through minor modification in the conventional ladder chassis frame. This paper presents the comparative study on improving the torsional stiffness of the chassis frame. The objective is to achieve the improved torsional stiffness by varying the neutral axis of the frame long member section at a desirable region. Torsional stiffness is dependent of the sectional modulus; this study provides an insight on increasing the torsional stiffness without addition of section modulus.

This study assesses the capabilities of dynamic wireless power transfer with respect to range extension and payload capacity of heavy-duty trucks. Currently, a strong push towards tailpipe CO2 emissions abatement in the heavy-duty transport sector by policymakers is driving the development of battery electric trucks. Yet, battery-electric heavy-duty trucks require large battery packs which may reduce the payload capacity and increase dwell time at charging stations, negatively affecting their acceptance among fleet operators. By investigating various levels of development of wireless charging technology and exploring various deployment scenarios for an electrified highway lane, the potential for a more efficient and environmentally friendly battery sizing was explored.

Transport sector decarbonization is a key requirement to achieve Green House Gases emissions reduction. Future regulations and the large deployment of Low Emission Zones (LEZ) will lead to deep changes in this sector. The green hydrogen appears as a promising fuel, containing no carbon. H2 Internal combustion engine (H2 ICE) offers the opportunities of quick refueling, known reliability, relative low total cost of ownership. It is based on mature manufacturing processes and tools. Hence this solution can be commercialized in a near future, offering a short term pathway to decarbonization and a H2 market growth accelerator. However, hydrogen combustion in air generates NOx emissions, which should be reduced close to zero to fulfill future requirements. The HyMot project gathers seven public and industrial partners to develop an H2 engine for Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) application offering the same performances as the replaced Diesel Engine.

Worldwide, there is the demand to reduce harmful emissions from non-road vehicles to fulfill European Stage V+ and VI (2022, 2024) emission legislation. The rules require significant reductions in nitrogen oxides (NOx), methane (CH4) and formaldehyde (CH2O) emissions from non-road vehicles. Compressed natural gas (CNG) engines with appropriate exhaust aftertreatment systems such as three-way catalytic converter (TWC) can meet these regulations. An issue remains for reducing emissions during the engine cold start where the CNG engine and TWC yet do not reach their optimum operating conditions. The resulting complexity of engine and catalyst calibration can be efficiently supported by numerical models. Hence, it is required to develop accurate simulation models which can predict cold start emissions. This work presents a real-time engine model for transient engine-out emission prediction using tabulated chemistry for CNG.

The present paper reports experimental and numerical research activities devoted to deeply characterize the behavior and performance of a Heavy Duty (HD) internal combustion engine fed by compressed natural gas (CNG). Current research interest in HD engines fed by gaseous fuels with low C/H ratios is related to the well-known potential of such fuels in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, combined to extremely low particulate matter emissions too. Moreover, methane, the main CNG component, can be produced through alternative processes relying on renewable sources, or in the next future replaced by methane/H2 blends. The final goal of the presented investigations is the development of a predictive 0D combustion submodel within the framework of a 1D numerical simulation platform.

Electrification is a very current topic for all the mobile machinery whose primary source of power is an internal combustion engine; among those the light weight passenger vehicles represent the first field of application of this trend and also the state of the art of the technology. Agriculture is a huge fuel consumer sector and for this reason the tractor industry is now working on electrification, proposing different approaches for different power sizes: the “Battery Electric Vehicle” topology is proposed for small and mid-power size tractors, while for the big ones various hybrid architectures couple the internal combustion engine to electric units. In this paper a reference tractor is considered, endowed with an input coupled hydro-mechanical Continuously Variable Transmission and an alternative compound architecture is proposed, which provides the same performances and it is more suitable for electrification.

Fuel cell systems for heavy-duty applications typically consist of multiple modules that can supply power jointly or individually. This work presents a novel energy management concept for the health-conscious activation of multi-module fuel cell systems to mitigate degradation in short or low-demanding driving cycles. The proposed activation strategy contributes to developing intelligent control systems for fuel cell electric trucks that optimally decide between battery-only, one-module, or two-module operation depending on the expected driving scenarios. The strategy derives from an optimal energy management problem formulation solved using dynamic programming, considering factors such as truckload, initial battery charge, route elevation, and trip length. Activation strategies for multi-module fuel cell systems are of significant interest because fuel cell degradation is severely affected by start-up/shut-down cycles.

The upcoming regulations to achieve zero-emission passenger transport present challenges for designing new ferry powertrains. The proposed work investigates the feasibility of using a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) power system to power a long-haul ferry. The paper describes the zero-order cell model as well as the method for estimating cell degradation. The stack modeling, heat balance equations, and auxiliary modeling are also presented. The proposed model enables the simulation of the fuel cell under different operating conditions and includes the use of air or oxygen as an oxidizer. A thermal management strategy for the overall PEMFC system is also proposed. The model was calibrated on the characteristic curves of the PEMFC Ballard FCvelocity™ HD6 (150 kW) and validated by reproducing experimental results. Then, a real load profile of a ferry, as well as the proposed powertrain is considered as case study.

This work aims at addressing the challenge of reconciling the surge in road transportation with the need to reduce CO2 emissions. The research particularly focuses on exploring the potential of fuel cell technology in long-distance road haulage, which is currently a major solution proposed by relevant manufacturers to get zero local emissions and an increased total payload. Specifically, a methodology is applied to enable rapid and accurate identification of techno-economically effective fuel cell hybrid heavy-duty vehicle (FCH2DV) configurations. This is possible by performing model-based co-design of FCH2DV powertrain and related control strategies. Through the algorithm, it is possible to perform parametric scenario analysis to better understand the prospects of this technology in the decarbonization path of the heavy-duty transportation sector, changing in an easy way all the parameters involved.

The second-life use of batteries from electric vehicles (EV) represents an excellent and cost-effective option for energy storage applications, including the control of fluctuations in energy supply and demand or in combination with solar photovoltaic and wind turbine. Indeed, these batteries are normally replaced from EV use before the end of their service life, when they still have 70-80% of the original capacity. Depending on the cell chemistry and the specific design, such batteries can still be employed in less stressful applications than the automotive one, including commercial, residential, and industrial applications. With the aim to promote the transition to a circular closed-loop economy for spent traction batteries, this study consists in a systematic literature review of available options for reusing EV batteries as a storage system in a factory environment, highlighting benefits and critical aspects.

The transport sector is experiencing a shift to zero-carbon powertrains driven by aggressive international policies aiming to fight climate change. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will play the main role in passenger car applications, while diversified solutions are under investigation for the heavy-duty sector. Within this framework, Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) impact is not negligible and accountable for about 2.5% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Europe. In this regard, few LCV comparative assessments on green powertrains are available in the scientific literature and justified by the fact that several factors and limitations should be considered and addressed to define optimal powertrain solutions for specific use cases. The proposed research study deals with a comparative numerical assessment of different zero-carbon powertrain solutions for LCV. BEVs are compared to hydrogen-based fuel cells (FC) and internal combustion engines (ICE) powered vehicles.