Mircea Ruba

By Mircea Ruba

The last years of research and development in the automotive industry were still focused on designing electrical propulsion units to be eco-friendly and diminish the drawbacks of classical combustion engines. Besides being energy efficient, silent, and high in power density, these must have a serious fault-tolerant ability as driver, and passengers’ safety is probably the most important issue in this filed. The chapter will detail fault-tolerant machines and power electronic architectures with their control for the most common ones, such as switched reluctance machines (SRM) and the permanent-magnet synchronous machines (PMSM). Besides detection, solutions will be presented for the machine-drive unit to wisely overcome and compensate occurred faults. A novel modular structure of SRM is presented with increased fault tolerance and possibility of fast repair in case of any machine damage. The solutions will be validated via simulated and experiment-based results.

Part of the book: Fault Diagnosis and Detection

By Florin-Nicolae Jurca and Mircea Ruba

The chapter aims to investigate the reduction of the fuel consumption of conventional vehicles using mild-hybridization and considering the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), using two topologies of electrical machines dedicated to integrated starter-alternator-booster (ISAB) applications: directly connected to the crankshaft (called ‘normal ISAB’) and indirectly through the belt system (called BSAB), respectively. The behaviour of ISAB and BSAB of a hybrid electric vehicle has been investigated with a multi-domain simulation software developed in Advanced Modelling Environment for performing Simulation (AMESim).

Part of the book: Hybrid Electric Vehicles

By Mircea Ruba and Petre Dorel Teodosescu

In the last decade, increased tendency in the field of automotive industry was focused on the development of highly efficient and low-cost electric propulsion systems to replace the existing internal combustion solutions. The aim is to reduce the pollution due to carbon dioxide emissions into the air. Several electric machine topologies with their power electronics, control and supply units are continuously in the development process to reach the desired goal. One such machine is the switched reluctance machine (SRM), reaching increased power density, low cost and possibility of continuous operation despite fault occurrence. Designing the machine, choosing its power electronics and controlling the machine to diminish the negative effect of the torque ripples are key points in reaching the proper propulsion system. The main topics presented in detail in this chapter are managing the reader’s skills with an analytic design breviary, presenting the machine’s control strategies for instantaneous torque linearization and finally, showing a power converter topology with increased performances in low voltage applications. To be more close to such an application, the exampled machine is developed for a light electric vehicle for people with physical disabilities. Operational skills of the machine will be validated based on complex simulations.

Part of the book: Switched Reluctance Motor

By Mircea Ruba, Raul Nemeș, Sorina Ciornei and Claudia Marțiș

The chapter focuses on presenting a detailed step-by-step workflow for theoretical and practical approach of Li-ion battery electric parameter identification. Correct and precise information about the electric parameters of the batteries allows defining several types of simulation approaches. Increasing the complexity of these approaches requires more and more identified parameters and by this more complicated hardware to fulfill the identification process itself. However, the level of complexity must be justified by the need of accuracy as well as the compromise of labor, simulation power and time. In this chapter, several simulation complexity levels are presented via theory and then tested via simulations compared with actual measurements. A proper and well-done analysis of these models helps the future reader to decide whether he will use a complex model, function of the need of accuracy, simulation power and time. The compromise will be highlighted by comparing the error of different approaches compared to actual laboratory measurements. Over all, the chapter will be a gathered guideline for identification, modeling and testing of batteries, ready to be implemented both in simulation and in practical experiments.

Part of the book: Applied Electromechanical Devices and Machines for Electric Mobility Solutions

By Raul Octavian Nemeș, Mircea Ruba, Sorina Maria Ciornei and Raluca Maria Raia

The general focus of the proposed chapter is to describe a complex yet transparent solution for advanced simulation analysis of urban electric vehicles propulsion unit. As general rule, precise and realistic results are obtained only when performing real-time simulations, engaging dedicated software for such applications. Hence, simulation of an electric vehicle as a complete solution can become rather difficult. The authors targeted advanced analysis of the propulsion unit, including the motor, the battery, the power converter, and its control. These are designed using multilevel models in Matlab/Simulink, referring to different complexity levels of each assembly. Another feature of the models is their organization, based on Energetic Macroscopic Representation (EMR), this easing the process of inter-connecting models correctly. Nevertheless, the mechanical, aerodynamical and road profile details are included using Amesim Software. All the simulations are performed on a real-time target, using a National Instruments PXIe embedded controller. The latter runs NI VeriStand software, allowing real-time communication between Amesim and Simulink offering in the same time possibility to read/write analog/digital IOs for external communication. This feature in fact is used when passing from modeling to Hardware in the Loop (HIL) analysis, replacing the simulated assembly with the actual one.

Part of the book: New Perspectives on Electric Vehicles