Simultaneous simulation for free

5 June 2002

Dave Wilson

Engineers within Delphi's Energenix Group have recently completed a project with NREL to create software that can simultaneously model a vehicle's propulsion and electrical systems.

Engineers within Delphi's Energenix Group, part of that company's Dynamics and Propulsion Innovation Centre, recently completed a development project with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to create software that can simultaneously model a vehicle's propulsion and electrical systems.

Better yet, the co-simulation software is available free of charge through NREL's Advisor Web site at http://www.ctts.nrel.gov/analysis/.

To develop the new software, Delphi and NREL combined the propulsion system simulation in NREL's Advisor software with the simulation of the electrical system in Saber, a tool used by many OEMs for electrical system analysis.

This new software runs the two simulations simultaneously with ongoing exchanges of information. The result is that the fuel economy or performance of a vehicle can be optimised.

The new software is able to co-simulate single or dual voltage electrical architectures. Series and parallel hybrid vehicle co-simulation currently is under development and is scheduled for release in 2003.

'Hybrid vehicles and those equipped with 42V systems create higher electrical loads on the engine, causing the electrical system to become more significant in vehicle fuel economy and performance. Co-simulation permits computation of vehicle fuel economy and performance over a drive cycle with various electrical architectures and hybrid control algorithms,' said Jean Botti, PhD, chief technologist, at Delphi's Innovation Centre.