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Emissions and fuel consumption reduction for the year 2020 have led to the development of new powertrain solutions. The development of new electric concepts presents vehicle integration challenges, involving among others, NVH. Energy flow is controlled by inverters that transform the energy from DC to AC by working at frequencies of the order of kilohertz with a control strategy that can abruptly switch, and motors introduce high orders and electro-magnetic forces due to their topology, inducing phenomena that are not present in internal- combustion engine vehicles. In Particular, a common characteristic of permanent magnet motors is cogging torque, which is due to the attraction of the rotor poles and stator slots that induces a torque ripple causing comfort challenges at low speed and low torque conditions.

Vehicle simulation models are essential throughout the development process in the automotive industry. The benefit starts when benchmarking, continues when target setting and component selection and permits model-based development of controllers and strategies to ease the calibration of the vehicle. This paper studies the suitability of different vehicle performance and consumption simulation methodologies based on longitudinal dynamics for the variety of applications on vehicle development. These methodologies can be applied to architectures ranging from quadricycles to trucks and from combustion to hybrid. The main difference between methodologies is the solver, which influences the results and the area of application. The two main trends, namely forward and backward simulation, have features that make them not suitable for all the applications.

The running costs of heavy-duty trucks are strongly influenced by fuel consumption. Even a small improvement in fuel economy has a big effect on fleet cost savings and pollutant contamination. From the different possible sub-systems to be improved, reducing the rolling resistance of the tires is a cost-effective option due to its relatively high influence on the fuel consumption without negatively affecting the overall performance. Nevertheless, the other causes of resistance forces, such as mechanical friction and aerodynamics must be optimized as well. The focus of the work is to propose an accurate methodology specifically for heavy trucks for the proper evaluation of resistance forces to allow accurate fuel consumption simulation. For this purpose, the results obtained in proving ground were post-processed by applying different resistance forces characterization methodologies and the results were analyzed theoretically and numerically.

The ELVA project (Advanced Electric Vehicle Architectures) was co-funded under the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme and had the goal of developing vehicle architectures specifically designed for electric powered vehicles. The consortium was formed by the Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika) of RWTH Aachen University (coordinator), Applus+ IDIADA, Volkswagen, Renault, Centro Richerche Fiat (CRF), Continental and the Swedish Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre (SAFER).