TITLE:
Hybrid Power Pack: Hybrid Powertrain for City Cars
AUTHORS:
Fabio Cignini, Sergio De Domenico, Leone Martellucci, Roberto Capata
KEYWORDS:
Hybrid, Vehicle, City Car, Battery, Energy, Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.4 No.4,
October
22,
2014
ABSTRACT: This paper
presents a novel concept, the Hybrid Power Pack (HPP), which consists of a
hybridization kit for transforming small city cars, powered by an original
diesel engine, into a parallel hybrid vehicle. The study was jointly conducted
by the University of Rome “Sapienza” and the Enea Casaccia research center. The
idea is to design a hybrid powertrain that can be installed in a typical
microcar, which means that all systems and components will be influenced by the
limited space available in the motor compartment of the vehicle. In this paper
the details of the mechanical and electrical realization of the powertrain will
be discussed and the simulation of a small city car equipped with HPP will be
presented and the results discussed and analyzed. The hybrid system also
includes the battery pack which is composed of twenty-four Li-ion cells made by
EIG, connected in series. The storage system is controlled as regards the
voltage and temperature by a Battery Management System (BMS). All the above
components are connected and managed by a control unit. The HPP presented in
this paper obtains a reduction in fuel consumption higher than 20%. The
solution presented with the HPP with its management strategy and the addition
of the “plug-in function” makes the hybrid vehicle suitable in terms of
performance and consumption in every driving conditions. The ideal strategy
behind the “plug-in function” could represent a guideline for further
achievements and experimentations, because it offers a simple hardware layout
and a real reduction in fuel consumption.