Several technological challenges delay the adoption of electrified powertrains in the heavy-duty transport sector. For fuel-cell hybrid electric trucks, key issues include slow cold start, reduced cooling power during high ambient temperatures, and uncertainties regarding durability. In addition, the engineers must handle the complexity of the system. In this article, a Matlab/Simulink library is introduced, which has been developed to aid engineers in the design and optimization of energy management systems and strategies of this complex system that consider mechanical, electrochemical, and thermal energy flows. The library is introduced through five example vehicle models, and through case studies that highlight the various kinds of analysis that can be performed using the provided models. All library code is open source, open for commercial use, and runs in Matlab/Simulink without any need for external libraries.
Electric vehicle thermal management systems have in the last two decades grown to become complex systems. This development has come as a response to the unique challenges faced by electrified powertrains, particularly the driving range reduction in cold climate operation. The rapid increase in complexity makes the systems harder to design, control, and evaluate, and consequently, a need for systematic analysis and design tools has emerged. The key contribution of this work is a model-based simulation tool developed to enable the combined evaluation and control of state-of-the-art thermal management systems. To show how engineers may use the tool to solve industrially relevant problems, two simulation case studies are performed and presented. The first case study compares three thermal management system layouts of increasing complexity and shows how their performance varies as ambient temperature decreases. The second case study concerns the potential benefits of additional cooling radiators for fuel cell trucks under heavy load in hot climates.