Optimal Cooling System Layout Identification for EV Components

As the automotive sector transitions to electrification, it presents a significant technological challenge in meeting consumers' demands for reduced energy use while maintaining vehicle performance. In the early stages of developing concepts and system performance in a specific operating environment, it is critical to construct simulation models to accelerate the development process while keeping costs to a minimum. In this study, a novel framework is proposed to enable an automated optimal cooling system layout. The methodology starts with a set of components, design rules, and system requirements to automatically generate all the admissible cooling system layouts. System layouts are generated by a concept based on a yoke chain tree. The generated layouts are coupled to a set of design rules based on the hydraulic and thermal requirements of the cooling system. Each layout is iteratively simulated based on rules in the available solution space to explore the Optimal ones. The case of the Powertrain Circuit in the electric vehicle cooling system was taken as the reference for this study. The best candidates are identified by a two-criteria optimization problem based on maximizing efficiency and minimizing the power consumption of the system. Results indicate that the difference in energy consumption between the best-performing layout and the worst one is 169%. Keywords: EV, Cooling System, Modelling, Simulations, Optimization, Cooling System Layouts