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The quality of the powertrain design has a significant impact on the fuel consumption and emissions of hybrid vehicles. Lack of experience with these relatively new technologies, the enormous variety of hybrid powertrain configurations, and the multitude of components make this area an ideal application for computer-based modeling and optimizations. Global optimization techniques have the advantage to explore systematically the design space to find the optimal configuration space. In this paper, a systematic procedure for an optimal design of hybrid powertrain configurations using an evolutionary algorithm is proposed. It will be shown that the design steps for parallel and power-split configurations are quite similar. This results in a computing approach with high synergy effects and the ability to exchange components seamless to compare different ‘virtual’ configurations.

In power-split configuration, the input power is split into two parts, one of which is transmitted from the internal combustion engine through one or more planetary gear(s) to the wheels. The other part is generated as electricity and passes through an electrical variator to assist the driving torque. The latter has the characteristic of poor efficiency. In this simulation study, a comparison among the input power-split, compound power-split, and two mode power-split are discussed. Output power-split is not mentioned in this paper due to its limited applicability in specific vehicles. The idea of selection of the electrical machines is explained: the speed and torque of electrical machines was taken into consideration for the required transmission ratios spread.