F2010A081
Energy and Fuel Saving Scenario using Hydro-Pneumatic Energy Storage System in an Automotive Application
In recent years, the awareness of an ever-growing world energy crisis and the respect of increasingly stringent regulations due to the production of polluting emissions, especially in the automotive field, have led various research institutions to seek alternatives to conventional fossil fuels in order to achieve a more rational use of energy.
KERS, acronym of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, are devices that do so. These systems are able to collect and store the braking energy of a vehicle, otherwise wasted, reusing it in the subsequent acceleration phases. In this work the authors want to focus on one type of devices that is arousing interest because it offers a high value of power density and a high efficiency of energy conversion with already developed technologies. In literature, these systems, which exploit the ability to store energy through the variation of the volume of a gas within a hydro-pneumatic accumulator, are called HESS (Hydro-pneumatic Energy Storage Systems).
HESS are currently being studied by several universities in Europe and the U.S., and by companies such as Ford and Eaton that are interested in developing and prototyping them.
This work was conducted through a collaboration between the University of L'Aquila and the AVL CRUISE Department. The purpose of this study is to look through the benefits that can bring in terms of fuel consumption and pollutant emissions of a conventional vehicle, hybrid made in series and parallel configuration by means of CRUISE platform for simulation tasks. Tests are done on normatized driving cycles, which can be urban and extra-urban , and each configuration has in its own well-defined strategy to optimize the use of energy flows between the primary engine, hydraulic pump/motor and wheels.
After these simulation analyses the authors want to provide an overview of the importance of a rational use of energy, in particular in the automotive field and also on how important it is to continue to pursue the direction of hybridisation to achieve a sustainable future.
This abstract is supplemented by a PDF, which can be viewed here.
Session: Alternative Drivelines