Thermal systems evaluation in hybrid electric vehicle by simulation

How to further improve the global efficiency of hybrid vehicles? One answer is to reduce the warm-up phase and to recover part of the exhaust energy wasted. This was one of the topics of the European project HICEPS, of which an evaluation of several thermal technologies embedded in hybrid vehicles, was executed: Thermo Electric Generator, Rankine system and energy storage tanks with and without Phase Change Material. Simulations are performed for different driving cycles and for different ambient temperatures. These simulations provide a comparison of the different thermal technologies' impact on vehicle fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.