Energy Flow Graphics – The Tool for Fast Analysis of Vehicle Drivelines

Due to the increasing complexity of new vehicle driveline systems, the analysis of the contribution of each integrated component and sub-system to the overall vehicle behavior becomes more and more challenging. A focus of interest in advanced drive trains with more than one energy path (e.g. hybrid topologies) is the analysis of the power flow (energy distribution) at all positions of the branched structure.

The new and unique functionality ‘Energy Flow Graphics’ (EFG) enables the user to do such analysis for any vehicle concept without having to go through hundreds of columns and thousands of rows of result tables. An animation shows different kinds of results of each component or the flow between drive train components over time of results like:

Below the flow graphics (with the actual vehicle model in the background) a result monitor (like the well-known Online Monitor) is shown which displays the result curves of selected components. With a zoom-option, the horizontal direction can be scaled so that also long cycles or a specific detail like a gear shifting process can be investigated properly. In addition to the graphical representation, also the associated values can be displayed (in the monitor as well as in the drivetrain flow graphics).

The flow graphics can be saved as a picture or copied into the clipboard. A data viewer shows a table with the flow values of every drive train component for every time step. The columns of interest can be chosen and e.g. transferred to MS Excel by copying them to the clipboard or by using the ‘export’ function.

The EFG significantly reduces the anaysis time of the energy distribution (and other values like system states) in every kind of vehicle drivetrain configuration for different vehicle test procedures. It helps to understand the impact of the improvement of a vehicle drivetrain component (e.g. reduction of losses) on the target values of the whole vehicle system and supports the designer of control strategies for single components (e.g. TCU of a double clutch transmission) as well as for overall vehicle control units of hybrid vehicles.

Other Key Features of AVL CRUISE v3.1: