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Power losses reduction in an electric traction drive at partial load operation

Article · March 2012


DOI: 10.1109/IEVC.2012.6183196

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Power Losses Reduction in an Electric Traction
Drive at Partial Load Operation
Eva Knischourek Klaus Muehlbauer and Dieter Gerling
FEAAM GmbH Institute for Electrical Drives and Actuators
Neubiberg, Germany Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen
eva.knischourek@unibw.de Neubiberg, Germany

Abstract—This paper shows ways of improving the efficiency of to heat and absorbed by the environment, which means it is no
the electric traction drive in a battery electric vehicle at partial longer available for driving or supplying other loads.
load operation referring to electric machine and power Therefore, this power dissipation needs to be reduced in order
electronics. Improved components are compared to those to increase the range of the vehicle. Vice versa, maintaining
typically used in an electric vehicle in terms of energy efficiency.
the vehicle range the size of the battery pack can be reduced
Further advantages, economic impact and optimization strategies
of the newly developed components are also discussed. by constricting power losses. With the cost of the battery
being very high compared to the other drive components this
Keywords: efficiency; optimization; simulation; battery electric appears to be an attractive option.
vehicle; partial load; power electronics; electric machine Power dissipation in the electric drive train occurs mainly
in the electric machine, battery and power electronics. Fig. 1
I. INTRODUCTION shows the components of a battery electric vehicle. In this
paper only machine and power electronics are considered,
One aspect of battery electric vehicles that has been
marked in red in Fig. 1.
heatedly discussed throughout the last months and years is the
achievable range of battery electric vehicles. Although
achievements in electric energy storage technologies have A. Electric machine
been made, the energy density of electro chemical batteries is In a typical electric traction machine, designed as a
still very small compared to fossil fuels. Yet the size of the permanent magnet machine, three types of losses are relevant:
energy storage in a car is limited. This controversy makes electric losses, magnetic losses and friction losses [1].
customers as well as manufacturers wonder whether electric Electric losses, also known as copper losses, are caused by
vehicles are able to compete with the conventional combustion the electric current and the winding resistance. With (1),
engine driven cars. This makes the optimization and which is a variation of Ohm’s law, the electric losses can be
improvement of the electric range of a battery electric vehicle calculated.
a vital issue.
As the range of an electric vehicle is limited by the size of (1)
the energy storage, which cannot be altered, the only
possibility to increase the range is to reduce the power the Magnetic losses are the generic term for two forms of
battery has to provide. Presuming that the mechanical power power dissipation, caused by the magnetic field. Firstly, losses
demand of the electric drive train stays constant to guarantee due to hysteresis and secondly, eddy current losses. Both
similar performance, the only way to lengthen the time depend on the electric frequency and the magnetic field
between two charging intervals is to minimize power losses. density, which is obvious from (2) and (3).
In this paper two approaches to increase the energy
efficiency of electric machine and power electronics are (2)
presented. It has to be noted that due to the connection of
electric machine and power electronics a complete drive
system, i.e. machine and inverter, needs to be examined to rate
the effect of these measures. Unlike the referenced papers,
which concentrate on only one component, this paper shows
the results for the combination of electric machine and power
electronics.
II. POWER DISSIPATION IN AN ELECTRICE DRIVE TRAIN
Every component of an electric vehicle’s traction system
produces energy losses during operation. Energy is transferred Figure 1. Components of a battery electric vehicle
(3)

The third part, friction losses, are a result of friction in the


bearings. They are influenced by the machine’s speed and can
be calculated using (4).

(4)

Due to their dependence on electric current and electrical


frequency power losses are strongly influenced by the current
operating point of the machine. As a rule of thumb, high Figure 2. Structure of model for electric drive system
torque means high current and high speed results in high
electrical frequency. III. PARTIAL LOAD OPERATION OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE
The energy efficiency of a drive is equal to the power
B. Power Electronics losses of the drive components. As these components are
always designed to provide a specific maximum output power
Power losses in power electronics are combined of their efficiency is usually best for operating points with a high
switching losses and conduction losses [2]. Switching losses power demand, i.e. nominal speed and high torque. However,
occur during turn-on and turn-off of a transistor and during this high-load operation points are quite rare considering the
turn-off of a diode, hence the power dissipation due to standard use of an electric vehicle would be inner-city traffic
switching depends on the switching frequency and the energy which means low or medium speed and moderate torque [4].
required for turning the transistor or diode on or off, as Examining standard driving procedures like the FTP-72 or
described in the following equations (5) and (6). Artemis Road driving cycle, the result is similar with many
operating points at low or medium load and only few at high
(5) load. This fact is illustrated in Fig. 3 which shows the
frequency of operating points for Artemis Road cycle, with
darker colours representing more frequent operating points.
Therefore, it is essential to improve the energy efficiency of
(6) drive components at partial load in order to increase vehicle
range or minimize battery size.
Eon, Eoff and Erec refer to the switching energy of transistor
and diode. This energy is a parameter specific for each IV. WAYS OF EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT
component and is approximately proportional to the active In this section various ways to reduce power losses in
chip area with regards to the gate-source capacity. electric machine and power electronics are presented.
To ensure a valid comparison every component was
Conduction losses are mainly dependent on current and designed under the following boundary conditions, which are
forward resistance of transistor and diode. Equation (7) gives typical requirements for an electric vehicle traction drive.
the formula for calculating conduction losses for both diode
and transistor with the respective values inserted.

(7)

A simulation model for calculating the power losses in an


inverter using look-up tables and analytic calculation methods
is presented in [3], which was used to further investigate the
means of efficiency optimization shown in this paper. This
model is combined with a similar model for losses in the
electric machine and thus the complete drive train of an
electric vehicle can be simulated. The structure of this model
is shown in Fig. 2 Figure 3. Frequency of operating points for Artemis Road Cycle
• Nominal DC-voltage: UDC = 300V
• Maximum short-time torque: T max = 250Nm
@ 4700min-1( P ≈ 123kW )
• Maximum speed: nmax = 12000 min-1
• Torque ripple: Tripple ≤ 5% (at low speed)

A. Electric machine
One possibility to increase the efficiency of the electric
machine is shown in [5], where a comparison between a
standard permanent magnet synchronous machine and an
improved machine is given. The latter is also excited by
permanent magnets; however, the winding of the stator is
altered.
Whereas the standard machine is of a 3-phase, 48-slots, Figure 5. Difference in Efficiency between improved machine design
8-poles topology with a short pitch winding of one slot, the and standard machine
new machine uses a variation of the well-known 12-slots, Important is the fact that the reduction of power losses also
10-poles topology with concentrated windings. Yet the latter depends on the driving cycle as the positive aspects show
design suffers some drawbacks like vibration and noise caused more prominently at partial load operating points. A typical
by radial forces and waves of the magneto motive force which standardized driving cycle with a moderate power demand
are not used for torque generation but lead to higher losses in would be the Artemis Rural Road Cycle. A comparison of the
iron and magnets. dissipated energy in the AC/DC-Converter for the standard
To overcome this disadvantages an additional winding machine and the optimized machine is shown in Fig. 6. The
system was introduced, doubling the number of slots to 24, result is a reduction of energy losses by approximately 25 %.
which is shown in Fig. 4. This results in a lower torque ripple,
and therefore less vibration and noise as well as a lower
B. Power electronics
current for the same mechanical performance. The most
important effect is a higher efficiency at partial load, as can be In addition to lower losses in the electric machine, the
seen from Fig. 5, which shows the difference between the improvement of the efficiency of the inverter is another vital
efficiency of the standard machine and the improved machine issue in increasing vehicle range. One possibility is shown in
(positive numbers represent a higher efficiency of the altered [8] where the efficiency at partial load is increased by
machine). It becomes clear that the efficiency of the new changing the active chip area during operation.
machine design is up to 15 percent points higher compared to This variation of chip area is achieved by using not one
the standard machine. single IGBT but several switches connected in parallel to
conduct the required current and inserting additional switches
Due to the lower current density not only losses in the into the driver circuit of the IGBTs. One valve of an inverter
electric machine are reduced but also losses in the power designed using this topology is shown in Fig. 7 with the
electronics, which are proportional to the current as shown in supplementary switches drawn in red.
section II.B. Therefore, a lower current leads to a higher When controlling each transistor individually the active
efficiency of the power electronics and thus to less heating and chip area can be altered by switching only some IGBTs on. A
a smaller heat sink. It allows a new sizing of the power decrease in chip area will on the one hand increase conduction
electronics which leads to further reductions in costs and losses in the IGBT due to a larger forward resistance but, on
power losses [6], [7].

Figure 4. New 24-slots/10-poles winding Figure 6. Energy losses in the AC/DC-converter for standard and
optimized machine for Artemis Road Cycle
other hand control and optimization algorithms become more
complicated.

C. Electric drive
Speaking of efficiency in an electric traction drive, it is
necessary to consider not only individual components but the
whole drive system as the influence of the components on
each other has to be taken into account.
Figure 7. New design of one valve of the power electronics Therefore, simulations of the whole drive systems have
been done for a standard drive, i.e. standard machine and
the other hand, reduce switching losses because of a lower standard power electronics, and an optimized drive, i.e.
energy demand. improved machine and power electronics with variable chip
The number of active chips has great influence on power size. The calculations of the energy losses are shown in Fig. 9
losses, therefore in operation points with high currents all where dotted lines mark the losses in the inverter, dashed lines
IGBTs should be used whereas at partial load operation fewer the machine losses and continuous lines the losses in the
active chips are required. Following this strategy the complete drive, i.e. the sum of inverter and machine losses.
efficiency of the inverter can be improved because in high While the improvement in machine efficiency is rather
load operation the conduction losses outweigh the switching moderate the difference in dissipated energy between standard
losses while at partial load the switching losses, which can be power electronics and new power electronic combined with
lowered by reducing the active chip area, are more prominent. new machine is more noticeable. This is due to a higher
A simulation result of the energy losses in a standard inverter inverter efficiency and reduced machine current. These
and in an optimized version with variable chip number is measures result in an improvement of losses in the drive by
shown in Fig. 8. The losses are in that case reduced by about 26%.
36 %.
The actual number of chips in use for each valve can be These simulations prove the effectiveness of the
determined by various means. A simple way would be to optimization approaches described above leading to a higher
increase it linearly to the current demand, e.g. assuming that efficiency of the electric drive for the Artemis Road cycle.
five IGBTs with an ampacity of 100 A are used one could Results may differ for simulations of other driving cycles as
increase the number of active chips by one with each rise in the efficiency improvement strongly depends on the relation
current demand of 100 A. This method would be easy to of operating point at partial or low load and those at high load.
implement, yet an analytical approach yields higher The more partial load operation outweighs full load the bigger
performance improvements. This approach determines the the benefit from these measures of efficiency improvement.
number of active chips by calculating the losses in transistor
and diode for the current operating points and using a
V. ADDITIONAL EFFECTS OF THE NEW DESIGNS
minimization algorithm on the results. Therefore, the active
chip area is always adjusted to the inverter losses. The aforementioned ways of improving efficiency of
Another degree of freedom for optimization can be electric drive components lead to new versions of these
introduced by using different IGBTs for one valve, thus components which yield additional advantages. These positive
scaling the ampacity of the chips non-linearly. On the one aspects are discussed in the following section.
hand this allows finer adjustment of current rating, on the

Figure 8. Energy losses in the AC/DC-converter for improved and Figure 9. Energy losses in the AC/DC-converter for improved and
standard inverter design for Artemis Road Cycle standard inverter design for Artemis Road Cycle
A. Vehicle range and economical impact B. Further advantages of the new inverter design
On the one hand, the described reduction in energy losses Additionally, the new inverter provides opportunities for
leads to an increased range of the vehicle assuming that the robust inverter designs. By including extra transistors it is
battery is not changed. This is an important result as the possible to use the device with the same output power even if
achievable range is a vital issue concerning customer one or more IGBTs break down.
expectations and competitiveness of electric vehicles from It is also possible to use IGBTs with different maximum
different manufacturers and electric and fossil-fuel powered current ratings. This yields the advantage of adapting the
vehicles. inverter’s output power in steps of almost every size and
On the other hand, it is possible to use a smaller battery to therefore providing an inverter which is scalable to fit not only
achieve the same range as the original vehicle. This leads to one but a variety of machines.
less weight and lower costs of the battery. Fig. 10 illustrates The choice of IGBT ratings and number of switches in use
this point as it shows the energy the battery needs to provide leaves room for optimization concerning various aspects, e.g.
during the driving cycle. For the improved drive system this cooling, life time or energy efficiency, which is a current issue
energy is reduced by 6 %. Therefore, the battery size could be of research.
downscaled by about the same factor which is proportional to
battery weight and prize. This is a vital issue regarding that the
battery is the heaviest and most expensive part of the electric VI. CONCLUSION
traction drive. Measures to improving the efficiency of electric machine
and power electronics and therefore the whole electric drive
In addition to that, increasing the efficiency means less train are discussed and in simulation compared to the
weight and lower costs for cooling of components. performance of standard devices. These improvements have a
The price of the drive train is further reduced by the simple considerable influence on vehicle range and costs of the
and automatic manufacturing of the electric machine which is electric traction system.
an effect of the new winding design. Therefore, production Especially the combination of the new topologies for
costs can be reduced by about 10 % [9]. machine and inverter results in a significant reduction in
power dissipation. Further improvements of these components
As variation of the chip area means higher current, thus as well as the verification of the proposed measures in
stress for the active IGBTs, the life cycle time may be shorter measurements are aims of future work.
compared to chips in a standard inverter. This is due to the fact
that a larger current means increased heating of the device and
thermal stress. An investigation of the temperature of a single REFERENCES
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