System Simulation with FEA and Optimization for Electric Vehicle Development

This presentation was made at the 2019 NAFEMS World Congress in Quebec Canada

Resource Abstract

As the automotive OEMs across the world start the development of next generation electric vehicles, they face unique challenges in terms of battery technology, system architecture, operating strategies and NVH. While effective choice of the first three is required to meet the requirements on metrics such as range of the vehicle, thermal management of the battery pack, energy management and lifetime of the battery, the absence of a conventional IC engine poses unique challenge for NVH since the cabin is relatively quieter in case of electric vehicles. Once past the phase of arriving at functional requirements, then comes the challenge of designing components to meet these requirements. System simulation is used both very early in the V-model of the product development for design concept evaluation as well as in the later half of the V-model for HIL and control software testing. As most products are made-up of multi-physical systems, system simulation focuses on interaction of all the subsystems and components of a technical system including the control aspect. When it comes to component level design, finite-element based approach in combination with optimization techniques is the most widely followed practice.