Courses

Vehicle Electrification

General

Course Contents

Introductory elements: brief throwback to electrification, electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. Factors leading to their study and introduction to the market.
Electric vehicles (EVs): architectural structures of EVs. Electrical powertrain structural elements.
Energy storage system. Types of energy sources and their applications. Source hybridization.
Batteries: types of batteries. Characteristic sizes regarding electrification (service life, operating voltage, capacity, state of charge/discharge, charge/discharge rate). Model of realistic battery. Applications. Practical issues (charging, battery change, maintenance).
Supercapacitors: Function. Types of supercapacitors. Characteristic sizes regarding electrification (service life, operating voltage, capacity, state of charge/discharge, charge/discharge rate). Applications. Practical issues.
Other energy sources: fuel cells, solar panels, ultra-high speed flywheels.
Charging system: types of charging systems. On and off board chargers. Charging levels. Fast chargers. Conductive, inductive and wireless charging.
Cost. V2G technology.
Propulsion system. Propulsion power and drive characteristics, electric motors, motor drives.
Electric motors: types of motors in electric vehicles (dc motors, ac motors, induction motor, BLDC motors and PMSM, SRM), basic principles of their operation and applications. Operation in generator area.
Motor drives, power electronics, inverters, DC/DC converters, DC/AC.
Regenerative braking. Principles of regenerative braking. Dynamic braking of electric motors, braking energy in a city cycle. Implementation strategies.
Hybrid electric vehicles: types of hybrid electric vehicles (micro, mild, full, plug-in), combinations of powertrains (series, parallel, series-parallel), modes of operation. Internal combustion engines for hybrid vehicles. Coupling forms: related technology. Application example: Toyota Prius.
Energy management system in vehicles with more than one power source. Basic types of operation. Related algorithms. Energy flow management and distribution in more than one source.
Electric and hybrid electric vehicles in practice
Examples of electric and hybrid electric vehicles
• Laboratory application: electric tricycles.

Educational Goals

With the successful attendance of the course the student must be able
• to identify and describe the structure of electric or hybrid electric vehicles
• to correctly understand and estimate the data of an electrical powertrain
• to calculate demands of an electrical powertrain
• to satisfactorily present a subject related to vehicle electrification
• to analyze the structure of an electric vehicle and redesign it

General Skills

Research, analysis and synthesis of data and information, using corresponding technologies, decision making, team work, implementing criticism and self-criticism, promotion of free, creative and inductive thinking, environmental respect.

Teaching Methods

Lectures, Exercises, Online guidance, Projected Presentations, E-mail communication, Online Synchronous and Asynchronous Teaching Platform (moodle). The course is supported by indicative small scale electric vehicles.

Students Evaluation

Assessment Language: English / Greek
The final grade of the course is formed by 70% by the grade of the theoretical part and by 30% by team small scale projects’ assessment.
1. The grade of the theoretical part is formed by a written final examination. The written final examination of the theoretical part may include:
Solving problems of application of the acquired knowledge, Short answer questions etc.
2. Team small scale projects are carried out using the acquired theoretical knowledge.
For the award of credits, both the total grade of the course and the independent grade in each of the assessment methods 1, 2 must be at least five.
The assessment criteria are accessible to students from the course website.

Recommended Bibliography

1. M. Ehsani, Y. Gao and A. Emadi, “Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicles”, Fundamental, Theory And Design, 2nd ed., CRC Press: Boca Raton, 2010.
2. Ι. Husain, Electric and Hybrid Vehicles Design Fundamentals. CRC Press, 2003.
3. J. Erjavec and J. Arias, Hybrid, Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicles. Thomson Delmar Learning, 2007.
4. S. Leitman and B. Brant, Build your own Electric Vehicle. McGraw Hill, 2009.
5. Fuhs, Hybrid Vehicles and the Future of Personal Transportation. CRC Press, 2009.
6. Rodrigo Garcia-Valle, João A. Peças Lopes, (Eds.), Electric Vehicle Integration into Modern Power Networks. Springer Verlang, 2012. (ISBN 978-1-4614-0134-6)
7. K. Jost (editor), “Global vehicles: Tokyo concepts”, SAE Automotive Engineering International, pp. 16-32, December 2007.
8. K. Jost (editor), “Global vehicles: On the cover”, SAE Automotive Engineering International, pp. 10-18, November 2008