Electric Vehicles are a key technology to decarbonize the road transport sector, which accounts 16% of global emissions. Recent years have seen exponential growth in the sale of electric vehicles together with improved range, wider model availability, and increased performance.
The automotive industry is turning more and more to virtual prototyping for vehicle development to significantly reduce development times and costs. Therefore it is essential that they have computationally efficient, high-fidelity battery models like MapleSim as part of their electric vehicle development strategy. MapleSim for EV and HEVs provide immense opportunity and significant advantages in EV and HEV designing.
The evergreen growth of EV and HEV industries
According to Precedence Research, the global hybrid electric vehicle market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 20.86% from 2022 to 2030. On the other hand, the EV industry is poised to grow at a CAGR of 23.1% during the 2023 to 2032 period.
Many automobile makers have announced dedicated timelines to develop EV or HEV vehicles and many others are exploring options in that path.
Automotive engineers face substantial challenges with the emergence of the new generation of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. To tackle these issues effectively, MapleSim for EVs and HEVs is indispensable.
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MapleSim: Advanced System-Level Modeling and Simulation Software Excellence
Maplesoft is one of the leading providers of high-performance software tools for engineering, science, and mathematics. Maple is a math software that combines the world’s most powerful arithmetic engine with an analytical interface. Maple has a gamut of products such as MapleSIM, MapleMBSE, and MapleNet.
Binary Semantics has collaborated with Maplesoft in India for enhancing to make the workflow seamless in various use cases. The potential applications of Maple products in India spread across the Ed-tech sector, Research and development in various sectors, data analytics, manufacturing and service operations, etc. Even in prestigious government operations such as DRDO and ISRO have wide use cases.
MapleSim is one such product under the Maple. MapleSim is an advanced software used for system-level modeling and simulation. It employs cutting-edge techniques to reduce the time needed for model development significantly. This powerful simulator provides improved insights into system behavior, enabling fast and accurate simulations with high fidelity.
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Obstacles in EV and HEV Designing
Designing Battery and related challenges – The heart of EV design challenge
Balancing Power Density and Performance
At present there is a race between various EV and HEV manufacturers to produce better, lower-cost energy storage products as well as show improvements in the circuitry and electromechanical components.
Commercial efforts are focused on boosting energy density, prolonging battery life, and enhancing charge and discharge efficiencies to decrease unit costs and improve the reliability of products. Further, ensuring adequate power density to provide satisfactory performance, especially for high-performance vehicles is also challenging.
Balancing weight and efficiency
EV manufacturers face a challenge concerning their weight, primarily due to heavy batteries. This can impact the efficiency and performance of battery-electric vehicles. EV and HEV designers must find a delicate balance between reducing weight to enhance efficiency and maintaining the structural integrity and safety of battery cars. Further to this, balance is crucial to ensure optimal performance and safety while maximizing the benefits of electric mobility.
Thermal Management
Batteries in EVs are susceptible to heat build-up during rapid charging and intense driving. This can lead to degradation and reduced performance over time. So proper thermal management systems, such as cooling and heating mechanisms, are essential to maintain the battery’s optimal temperature range, prolong its lifespan, and ensure consistent vehicle performance.
Other challenges in EV and HEV design
Selection of Power Conductors
In modern Electric Vehicles (EVs), power conversion systems play a crucial role. For instance, a DC-AC inverter system is employed to convert the battery’s DC power to run an AC induction motor. Charging systems utilize a combination of AC-DC converter, DC-DC converter, and power factor corrector (PFC). Conversely, the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) can handle voltage levels from 400 volts to 1600 volts.
But both have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it’s not yet clear which one is the best option for use in EV manufacturing. So, while designing them, electric vehicle manufacturers need to analyze what is best for their particular EV design in simulation.
Reliability of powertrain components
Powertrain design engineers face a significant challenge in ensuring the reliability of crucial components like batteries, motors, and power electronics, which are susceptible to environmental stresses such as temperature fluctuations and mechanical shocks when on the road. So, without proper planned design and simulator results the entire project might face reliability threats.
Electrical architecture
After the chassis and powertrain, the electrical distribution system ranks as the third heaviest in a vehicle. Achieving lower mass in this system is vital for meeting overall vehicle weight targets. The design of EV connectors and cables faces the significant challenge of managing physical size and mass to efficiently conduct high currents.
So, without proper simulation of optimal charging algorithms, optimal vehicle performance, and optimal designs, the time, resources and manpower invested in EV designing will be in vain.
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MapleSim’s key attributes benefiting EV and HEV designs
With MapleSim the Electric Vehicle (EV) and Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) designers in the automotive industry can reap a host of benefits.
Battery Library of MapleSim for EV and HEV design
Accurate modeling of batteries is crucial for understanding their behavior, performance, and lifetime of EVs and HEVs. MapleSim’s battery library feature enables seamless integration of physics-based predictive models of battery cells into comprehensive multi-domain system-level models. Consequently, users can link battery designs to various electromechanical system models, including the IC engine (in the case of a hybrid), power generation, motors, and all power electronic circuitry (AC-DC converters, inverters, and power drives). This enables thorough testing and analysis of their operations.
Real-time Simulation of MapleSim for EV and HEV design
With MapleSim’s lossless symbolic techniques, the development time for any designs such as battery designs, vehicle dynamic designs, and HEV powertrain designs can be significantly reduced. Further, these models’ results are much closer to the physics of the actual systems. Thereby making MapleSim a computationally efficient system.
New Event handler of MapleSim for EV and HEV design
Event handling is one of the most crucial parts of the real-time simulation of any hybrid system. The traditional methods will trigger events only at each step of the fixed-step solver. This causes non-ideal behavior. But in MapleSim you can estimate the ideal event point, even between solver steps.
This will be more accurate.
High-Fidelity Modeling of MapleSim for EV and HEV Design
MapleSim uses a symbolic modeling approach. It enables the creation of high-fidelity models based on fundamental physics. This results in more accurate simulations which is critical for understanding the behavior of EV and HEV systems under different operating conditions.
A recent case study conducted by a research team at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, under the leadership of Dr. John McPhee, involved the development of high-fidelity battery models for hybrid-electric and electric vehicles. The team opted for MapleSim due to its symbolic approach, which proved to be an efficient method for creating simulation models with the required fidelity without compromising real-time performance during hardware in the loop (HIL) testing.
Multidomain Modeling for EVs and HEVs design
MapleSim for EV and HEV design involve complex multidomain systems. Such as electrical, mechanical, thermal, and control components. Engineers can construct comprehensive models that accurately capture the precise interactions between different subsystems, thanks to MapleSim’s capability to handle multi-domain modeling.
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Complex system simulation in fingertip with MapleSim
MapleSim’s custom components include governing equations of various processes for EVs and HEVs.
MapleSim has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Not only that, but it also has pre-built component libraries. MapleSim automatically generates an optimized set of governing equations for both the HEV system and EV system, thereby simplifying the modeling process.
This enables rapid prototyping of vehicle models in which engineers can quickly iterate and test different design configurations. This will save an enormous amount of time in the EV and HEV development process.
Powertrain Optimization of MapleSim for EV and HEV design
With MapleSim, engineers can simulate the entire powertrain of an EV or HEV, including the electric motor, transmission, and driveline. This helps optimize the powertrain design for efficiency, performance, and range.
System Integration with MapleSim for EV and HEV design
MapleSim allows users to export simulation models to various formats, such as Simulink, FMI, or C-code. This facilitates seamless integration with other engineering tools and software used in the automotive industry.
Energy Efficiency Analysis of MapleSim
MapleSim can perform detailed energy efficiency analysis for EV and HEV systems. Engineers can identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement to enhance the overall energy efficiency of the vehicle.
Design Optimization with MapleSim
By coupling MapleSim with optimization tools, engineers can conduct design optimization studies to find the best configurations and parameters for achieving specific performance objectives, such as maximizing range or minimizing energy consumption.
Conclusion
With MapleSim, you will have access to the expertise and tools necessary to fulfill your project requirements swiftly and efficiently. With MapleSim’s designs and its array of advantages tailored to EV and HEV design, MapleSim emerges as a valuable asset for engineers and researchers working in the automotive industry.
MapleSim and other Maple products are utilized by experts in various engineering fields who possess extensive experience in model-based design and rely on the software’s superior system-level modeling and analysis tools. It is time for you to embrace Maple Products and plant your footprints in the EV and HEV industry firmly.
