NPTEL – Electrical Engineering – Introduction to Hybrid and Electric Vehicles

Lecture 4: Vehicle Power Plant and Transmission Characteristics

Vehicle Power Plant and Transmission Characteristics
Introduction
The topics covered in this chapter are as follows:
 The drive train configuration
 Various types of vehicle power plants
 The need of gearbox in a vehicle
 The mathematical model of vehicle performance
Drive train Configuration
An automotive drive train is shown in Figure 1. It consists of:
 a power plant
 a clutch in a manual transmission or a torque converter in automatic transmission
 a gear box
 final drive
 differential shaft
 driven wheels
The torque and rotating speed from the output shaft of the power plant are transmitted to the
driven wheels through the clutch or torque converter, gearbox, final drive, differential and
drive shaft.
The clutch is used in manual transmission to couple or decouple the gearbox to the
power plant. The torque converter in an automatic transmission is hydrodynamic device,
functioning as the clutch in manual transmission with a continuously variable gear ratio.
The gearbox supplies a few gear ratios from its input shaft to its output shaft for the
power plant torque-speed profile to match the requirements of the load. The final drive is
usually a pair of gears that supply a further speed reduction and distribute the torque to each
wheel through the differential.

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Clutch
Driven wheel

1 3 5
Vehicle Differential Drive Shaft
Powe r Plant
2 4 R

Driven wheel
Transmission

Figure 1: An automobile power train

Vehicle power plant

There are two limiting factors to the maximum tractive effort of the vehicle:
 Maximum tractive effort that the tire-ground contact can support
 Tractive effort that the maximum torque of the power plant can produce with the given
driveline gear ratios.
The smaller of these factors will determine the performance potential of the vehicle. Usually it
is the second factor that limits the vehicles performance.
The classification of various types of power plants used in a vehicle is shown in Figure 2.

Prime Mover

Inte rnal Combustion Engine

Hybrid Drives Electric Motors
(ICE)

AC Motors
Continuous
Single Ignition Combustion
DC Motors

Spark ignition
Gas turbine
engine

Diesel engine

Figure 2: Classification of vehicle power plat

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In selecting a suitable power plant, the following factors are considered:

 Operating performance
 Economy
 Environment friendliness
For vehicular applications, the ideal performance characteristic of a power plant is constant
power output over the full speed range. Consequently, the torque varies hyperbolically with
respect to speed as shown in Figure 3. This ideal performance characteristic of the power
plant will ensure that the maximum power is available at any vehicle speed, thus resulting in
optimal vehicle performance. In practice however, the torque is constrained to be constant a
low speeds. This is done so as not to be over the maxima limited by the adhesion between the
tyre-ground contact areas. The internal combustion (IC) engines are the most commonly
used power plants for the land vehicles. In hybrid and electric vehicle technology, the electric
motor is used.

Torque

Powe r

Speed

Figure 3: Ideal performance characteristics for a vehicle power plant

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engines used in the vehicles are based on two principles:
 spark ignition (petrol engines) principle
 Diesel principle.
The key features of the ICs based spark ignition principle are:
 high power/weight ratio
 good performance
 low combustion noise.

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The disadvantages of are the ICs based spark ignition principle are:
 quality of fuel required
 higher fuel consumption.
The advantages of the diesel engines are:
 low fuel consumption
 low maintenance requirement due to absence of ignition system
 low fuel quality required
The disadvantages of the diesel engine are
 high level of particulate emission
 greater weight and higher price
 higher levels of noise
The two typical characteristic curves used to describe the engine characteristic are:
 torque vs. engine speed curve at full load (100% acceleration pedal position)
 power vs. engine speed curve at full load (100% acceleration pedal position)
These two characteristic curves are shown in Figure 4. In Figure 4 the following
nomenclature is used:
Pmax  Pn  Maximum engine power = Nominal power
P(Tmax )  Engine power at maximum torque
Tmax  Maximum engine torque
T ( Pmax )  Tn  Engine at maximum power = Nominal Torque
n( Pmax )  nn  Engine speed at maximum power = Nominal speed
n(Tmax )  Engine speed at maximum torque

Various indices are used to facilitate comparison between different types of engine. The two
most important indices are:
 torque increase (torque elasticity) defined as
Tmax

Tn
where (1)
Tmax  max imum engine torque
Tn  engine torque at max imum power , also known as no min al torque

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 engine speed ratio defined as

nn
v
n(Tmax )
where (2)
nn  engine speed at max imum power, also known as no min al speed
n(Tmax )  engine speed at max imum torque

Pmax
Powe r
Torque T
Engine

P(Tmax)

Tmax

Engine Powe r P
T(Pmax )
Torque

nmin n(Tmax ) n(Pmax )

Engine Speed

Figure 4: Characteristic curves of an internal combustion engine

The higher value of the product  better engine power at low and medium engine speeds.
This in turn means less frequent gear changing.

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The need for gearbox

Internal combustion engines today drive most of the automobiles. These internal combustion
engines work either on the principle of spark ignition or diesel principle. In addition to the
many advantages of the internal combustion engine, such as high power to weight ratio and
relatively compact energy storage, it has two fundamental disadvantages:
i. Unlike the electric motors, the internal combustion engine cannot produce
torque at zero speed.
ii. The internal combustion engine produces maximum power at a certain engine
speed.
iii. The efficiency of the engine, i.e. its fuel consumption, is very much dependent
on the operating point in the engine’s performance map.
With a maximum available engine power Pmax and a road speed of v, the ideal traction
hyperbola Fideal and the effective traction hyperbola Feffec can be calculated as follows:
Pmax
Fideal 
v
Pmax
Fideal  tot
v
where
tot  efficiency of the drivetrain
(1)
Hence, if the full load engine power Pmax were available over the whole speed range, the
traction hyperbolas shown in Figure 7 would result. However, the Pmax is not available for the
entire speed range. The actual traction profile of the ICE (Fengine) is shown in Figure 7. From
Figure 7 it is evident that the entire shaded area cannot be used.

Adhesion Limit Without drive train efficiency:Ideal

traction hyperbola Fideal

With drive train efficiency:Ideal

traction hyperbola Feffec
Tractive efort Fz

Inte rnal combustion engine traction

available Fengine

Speed

Figure 7: Traction force vs. speed map of an internal combustion engine without gearbox

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In order to utilize the shaded area, shown in Figure 7, additional output converter is required.
The output converter must convert the characteristics of the combustion engine in such a way
that it approximates as closely as possible to the ideal traction hyperbola (Figure 8).

Adhesion Limit

Traction force available

in second gear

Traction required for 0% gradient

Tractive efort Fz

1 st
gear
2 nd
gear
3 rd
gear 4 th
gear

Speed

Figure 8: Traction force vs. speed map of an internal combustion engine with gearbox
The proportion of the shaded area, i.e. the proportion of impossible driving states, is significantly smaller when an output converter
is used. Thus, the power potential of the engine is better utilized. The Figure 8 shows how increasing the number of gears gives a
better approximation of the effective traction hyperbola.

Drive train tractive effort and vehicle speed

After having dealt with the configuration of the drivetrain, this section deals with the tractive
effort. The torque transmitted from the power plant to the driven wheels (Tw) is given by:
Tw  ig iotTp
where
ig  gear ratio of the transmission (1)
io  gear ratio of the fianl drive
t  efficiency of the driveline from the power plant to the driven wheels
Tp  torque output from the power plant [ Nm]

The tractive effort on the driven wheels (Figure 9) is expressed as

Tw
Ft 
rdyn
where (2)
rdyn  dynamic radius of the tyre [m]

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Substituting value of Tw from equation 1 into equation 2 gives

Tpig iot
Ft  (3)
rdyn

The total mechanical efficiency of the transmission between the engine output shaft and
driven wheels is the product of the efficiencies of all the components of the drive train.
The rotating speed of the driven wheel is given by
Np
Nw  [rpm]
ig io
where (4)
N p  rottational speed of the transmission [rpm]

The rotatational speed Np of the transmission is equal to the engine speed in the vehicle with a
manual transmission and the turbine speed of a torque converter in the vehicle with an
automatic transmission. The translation speed of the wheel (vehicle speed) is expressed as
 N w rdyn
V [m / s ] (5)
30
By substituting the value of Nw from equation 4 into equation 5, the vehicle speed can be
expressed as
 N p rdyn
V [m / s] (6)
30ig io

Vehicle performance
The performance of a vehicle is determined by the following factors:
 maximum cruising speed
 gradeability
 acceleration

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Maximum Cruising Speed

The maximum speed of a vehicle is defined as the constant cruising speed that the vehicle can
achieve with full power plant load on a flat road. The maximum speed of a vehicle is
determined by the equilibrium between the tractive effort of the vehicle and the resistance and
maximum speed of the power plant and gear ratios of the transmission. This equilibrium is:
Tp ig i0t 1
 Mgf r cos(a )   a CD A f V 2
rdyn 2
where
ig  gear ratio of the transmission
(30)
i0  gear ratio of the final drive
t  efficiency of the driveline from the power plant to the driven wheels
Tp  torque output of the power plant [ Nm]

equation 30 shows that the vehicle reaches its maximum speed when the tractive effort,
represented by the left hand side term, equals the resistance, represented by the right hand
side. The intersection of the tractive effort curve and the resistance curve is the maximum
speed of the vehicle, Figure 9.

120
Tractive effort
Resistance on grade
100
Tractive effor [Nm]

80

60

Fr+Fw+Fg
40

20

0
0 50 100 150 200 250
Speed [km/h]

Figure 9: Tractive effort of an electric motor powered vehicle with a single speed transmission and its resistance

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