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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Electric-drive vehicles use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. With the range of styles and options available, there is likely one to meet your needs. Electric vehicles (EVs) include all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).
Electric-drive vehicles use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. These vehicles can be divided into three categories: All-electric vehicles and Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Together, PHEVs and EVs can also be referred to as electric vehicles (EVs).
Effective thermal management of traction-drive power electronics is critical to the advancement of electric-drive vehicles and is necessary for increasing power density and improving reliability. Replacing traditional silicon devices with more efficient, higher temperature, higher voltage, and higher frequency wide-bandgap (WBG) devices will enable increased power density but will result in higher device heat fluxes. Compact packaging of high-temperature WBG devices near low-temperature-rated components creates thermal management challenges that need to be addressed for future power-dense systems. This paper summarizes the thermal performance of on-road automotive power electronics thermal management systems and provides thermal performance and pumping-power metrics for select vehicles. Thermal analyses reveal that the package/conduction resistance dominates the total thermal resistance (for existing automotive systems). We model advanced packaging concepts and compare the results with existing packaging designs to quantify their thermal performance enhancements. Double-side-cooled configurations that do not use thermal interface materials are package concepts predicted to provide a low junction-to-fluid thermal resistance (compared to current packages). Dielectric-fluid-cooled concepts enable a redesign of the package to reduce the package resistance, can be implemented in single- and two-phase cooling approaches, and allow for cooling of passive components (e.g., capacitors) and bus bars.
This manual details the fifth version of the Battery Performance and Cost (BatPaC v5.0) model developed at Argonne National Laboratory for lithium-ion battery packs used in transportation (file “BatPaC 5.0 2022-07-22.xlsm”). BatPaC is a publicly available model that performs a bottom-up lithium-ion battery design and cost calculation. The model designs the battery for a specified power, energy, and vehicle type (i.e., hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or full-electric). The cost of the designed battery is calculated by accounting for every step in the lithium-ion battery manufacturing process. The original model and manual were publicly peer-reviewed by battery experts assembled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This revised model and manual include changes made in response to comments received from users and the observed trajectory of the industry.
Electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. EVs include all-electric vehicles, also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). In colloquial references, these vehicles are called electric cars, or simply EVs, even though some of these vehicles still use liquid fuels in conjunction with electricity. EVs are known for providing instant torque and a quiet driver experience. Other types of electric-drive vehicles not covered here include hybrid electric vehicles, which are powered by a conventional engine and an electric motor that uses energy stored in a battery, and fuel cell electric vehicles, which use a propulsion system similar to electric vehicles, where energy stored as hydrogen is converted to electricity by the fuel cell.
This presentation provides a state of the art of electric-drive vehicle power electronics, and covers the APEEM Group research in thermomechanical and reliability aspects of advanced power electronics packaging. Some future directions are identified.
The Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator (FASTSim™) provides a simple way to compare powertrains and estimate the impact of technology improvements on light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicle efficiency, performance, cost, and battery life. This extremely fast simulation tool features a streamlined user interface and can rapidly perform a variety of tasks using basic computing resources: • less than 0.1 second to simulate second-by-second standard duty cycles • less than 10 seconds to estimate vehicle efficiency, fuel economy, acceleration, battery life, and cost • less than 5 minutes to perform powertrain comparisons of efficiency and cost. FASTSim models a variety of vehicle powertrains and fuel converter types: • Conventional vehicles - spark ignition, Atkinson, diesel, and hybrid diesel • Electric-drive vehicles - hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all-electric • Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The default model includes a variety of vehicles and duty cycles and an option for adding additional vehicles and custom cycles: • Packaged with more than 20 vehicles • User interface enables addition of more vehicles • Includes standard U.S. drive cycles as well as European and Japanese cycles. FASTSim is available for download in Microsoft Excel and Python formats here: https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/fastsim.html
The 2017 Electrical and Electronics Technical Team Roadmap [1] proposes aggressive research and development targets aimed at improving power electronics technology to enable the mass-market penetration of electric-drive vehicles. Achieving these aggressive targets will require a decrease in cost (year 2025 cost target: $2.70/kW) and an increase in power density (year 2025 power density target: 100 kW/L) as compared with current on-road technology. Replacing traditional silicon device-based components with more efficient and higher-temperature wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor device-based components will enable increased power density. However, meeting the power density target will also require innovative thermal management solutions to increase the heat fluxes dissipated and allow for compact electronics packaging. This project conducts research to develop new power electronics thermal management technologies to increase power density, enable high WBG temperature operation, and decrease cost. The performance (e.g., thermal resistance, pumping power) of the power electronics cooling technologies developed in this project are compared to the performance of current, on-road technology. One of the main challenges to achieving high power densities is associated with packaging high-temperature (up to 250 degrees C) WBG devices near lower-temperature-rated components (e.g., electrical boards and capacitors).
Argonne National Laboratory has worked on electrochemical energy storage for several decades. The focus on lithium-ion chemistries started in the early 1990s, developing new materials, synthesis methods, and performance characterizations. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office (DOE-EERE-VTO), Argonne has led with many advances. The experimental activities were complemented with multi-scale modeling that ranged from the atomic to the system (manufacturing processes and automobiles) level. The Battery Performance and Cost (BatPaC) model is a calculation method based on Microsoft¿ Office Excel spreadsheets that have been developed at Argonne for estimating the performance and manufacturing cost of lithium-ion batteries for electric-drive vehicles including hybrid-electrics (HEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV) and pure electrics. The effort is being funded by the Vehicle Technology Office (VTO), which is part of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) office of the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). BatPaC was first developed in 2007, was subsequently peer-reviewed, and it has served Argonne researchers and the greater battery community in studying the impact of material properties on performance at the pack level. With further developments, the model now allows the design of cells and battery packs for automotive applications, to meet performance requirements (power, energy, recharge time), and estimates the cost of manufacturing the designed batteries. Since the cost depends on the materials he design, and the manufacturing process, this bottom-up model/tool enables the user to study their effects. Designed or the lithium-ion cell and battery researcher, BatPaC helps answer many questions by being 1.Transparent in the assumptions made and the method of calculation 2.Capable of designing a battery specifically for the requirements of an application 3.Constrained by the physical limitations that govern battery performance 4. A bottom-up calculation approach to account for every cost factors. BatPaC predicts the impact of promising materials (and their properties) on the performance metrics relevant for the different applications. Researchers can use the specific capacities and the half-cell voltages of a particular set of electrode materials to calculate the mass and volume of a cell to develop a model incorporating the properties of all the other materials in the cell and the design of the cell enclosure. These calculations not only reveal the impact of an improved material but also enable researchers to calculate the material properties that would be needed to meet the performance criteria of a full battery pack. With this information, researchers can provide he battery industry with realistic expectations that will help it more successfully advance novel battery technologies an Applications.
SF-26-016 The Battery Performance and Cost model (BatPaC) is a calculation method based on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that has been developed at Argonne for estimating the performance and manufacturing cost of lithium-ion batteries for electric-drive vehicles including hybrid-electrics (HEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and pure electrics. BatPaC was first developed in 2007, was subsequently peer reviewed, and it has served Argonne researchers and the greater battery community in studying the impact of material properties on performance at the pack level. BatPaC has been updated and re-released multiple times since its original public release in 2011. This current version is BatPaC 6.0, which contains additional functionality needed to handle advances in automotive batteries, like the use of lithium metal and silicon anodes and the need to accommodate cell expansion and apply high levels of pressure.
The presentation provides an overview of NREL's Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Machines (APEEM) group and its research activities. Power electronics thermal management systems for electric-drive vehicles are described and performance metrics are provided. Additionally, advanced cooling technologies developed at NREL are presented. Finally, an overview is provided for electric machine cooling, integrated drives, and thermomechanical research.
Presented are electrical capacitors with interleaved busbar architectures, methods for making/operating such capacitors, and electric-drive vehicles equipped with such capacitors. A bulk capacitor includes multiple capacitor devices disposed within an outer housing and operable to modify electric current transmitted between a power source and an electrical load. An interleaved busbar package is interposed between the capacitor devices and outer housing. The interleaved busbar package includes a first busbar plate that electrically connects to first terminals of the capacitor devices and defines a busbar pocket. A second busbar plate is seated within the busbar pocket and electrically connects to second terminals of the capacitor devices. The second busbar plate includes a capacitor basin that seats therein the capacitor devices. An isolator sheet is interleaved between and electrically insulates the first and second busbar plates. The capacitor devices and interleaved busbar package may be partially submerged in an epoxy endfill composition.
This at a glance brochure provides an overview of electric vehicles, including battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. EVs include all-electric vehicles, also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). In colloquial references, these vehicles are called electric cars, or simply EVs, even though some of these vehicles still use liquid fuels in conjunction with electricity. EVs are known for providing instant torque and a quiet driver experience. Other types of electric-drive vehicles not covered here include hybrid electric vehicles, which are powered by a conventional engine and an electric motor that uses energy stored in a battery that is charged by regenerative braking, not by plugging in, and fuel cell electric vehicles, which use a propulsion system similar to electric vehicles, where energy stored as hydrogen is converted to electricity by the fuel cell.
The 2017 Electrical and Electronics Technical Team Roadmap [1] proposes aggressive research and development targets aimed at improving power electronics technology to enable the mass-market penetration of electric-drive vehicles. Achieving these aggressive targets will require a decrease in cost (year 2025 cost target: $2.70/kW) and an increase in power density (year 2025 power density target: 100 kW/L) as compared with current on-road technology. Replacing traditional silicon device-based components with more efficient and higher-temperature wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor device-based components will enable increased power density. However, meeting the power density target will also require innovative thermal management solutions to increase the heat fluxes dissipated and allow for compact electronics packaging.
The 2017 Electrical and Electronics Technical Team Roadmap [11] proposes aggressive research and development targets aimed at improving power electronics technology to enable the mass-market penetration of electric-drive vehicles. Achieving these aggressive targets will require a decrease in cost (year 2025 cost target: $2.70/kW) and an increase in power density (year 2025 power density target: 100 kW/L) as compared with current on-road technology. Replacing traditional silicon device-based components with more efficient and higher-temperature wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor device-based components will enable increased power density. However, meeting the power density target will also require innovative thermal management solutions to increase the heat fluxes dissipated and allow for compact electronics packaging. This project evaluates, designs, and develops thermal management strategies that use dielectric fluid (single-phase heat transfer) as coolants.
Electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. EVs include all-electric vehicles, also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). In colloquial references, these vehicles are called electric cars, or simply EVs, even though some of these vehicles still use liquid fuels in conjunction with electricity. EVs are known for providing instant torque and a quiet driver experience. Other types of electric-drive vehicles not covered here include hybrid electric vehicles, which are powered by a conventional engine and an electric motor that uses energy stored in a battery that is charged by regenerative braking, not by plugging in, and fuel cell electric vehicles, which use a propulsion system similar to electric vehicles, where energy stored as hydrogen is converted to electricity by the fuel cell. This is the French translation of NREL/FS-5400-87125.
Final Technical ReportThis project aimed to research, develop, and test electric traction drive system technology for use in vehicle applications that are capable of meeting the targets set by the Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office. The project is categorized into three major thrusts: Bonding interfaces for packaging, thermal management of electric vehicle (EV) power inverters, and electric motor thermal management. Device- and System-Level Thermal Packaging for Electric-Drive Technologies project aimed to develop, analyze, and validate transformative approaches in thermal management and packaging for power electronics and electric motor systems, with the ultimate goal of enhancing power density, efficiency, and reliability in electrified transportation platforms.