Modeling and Co-design Optimization for Heavy Duty Trucks

This paper presents a co-design optimization framework for the heavy-duty trucks as a part of the ORCA European project. The proposed co-design framework composes of an optimal control strategy using the Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS), which is nested into a component sizing optimization loop employing Genetic Algorithms (GA). Considering a particular transport assignment, the optimization objective is to find optimal sizing of key components such as Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), Electric Motor (EM) and battery system to minimize a Total Cost of Ownership for hybrid heavy-duty powertrain (denoted as pTCO) without impairing the performance requirements. The pTCO includes the investment cost of main powertrain components and operational cost over the lifetime of vehicle. In the co-design framework, maximum power (kW) of the ICE (kW), EM (kW) and battery capacity (kWh) are selected as design variables of optimization problem. Optimal solution of the developed GA-based co-design framework is verified via a comparison with that of Brute Force (BF) search method.