Romax Technology will be presenting a paper at the VDI Congress, Transmissions in Vehicles, at the end of this month. The event, which is the most important specialist conference for vehicle transmission developers and users in Europe, will attract more than 1,000 delegates and over 50 companies to the exhibition.
During the two day event Romax Technology’s Dr. Philipp Guttenberg will be presenting a paper entitled: Functional Efficiency Comparison between Split and Parallel Hybrid using Advanced Energy Flow Analysis. The paper will discuss a number of issues including the analysis and visualisation of the energy flow in hybrid drive lines as well as the problem of different energy flow topologies. Using a sample study the paper will shows that even very different hybrid concepts like a split- and a parallel-hybrid can be compared in high levels of detail.
Hybrid is about to enter the market as a mainstream product but it still needs to prove that it can not only deliver real world fuel and CO2 savings but also at affordable costs. Understanding fuel consumption and fuel consumption sensitivity, only given the usual simulation results, is difficult and needs a lot of experience. Romax is developing energy flow analysis methods, which enable to directly visualize and investigate energy flow and loss mechanisms in the driveline.
“This conference will give us the opportunity to discuss aspects of our work on hybrid drivelines and energy flow analysis to leading specialists in the transmissions industry,” explained Dr Philipp Guttenberg, hybrid team leader at Romax Technology. “This paper presents a functional efficiency study which demonstrates the benefits and possibilities of using the energy flow analysis. Romax is continuing to investigate different ways in which this new analysis method can be applied.”
Further ongoing R&D activity will include focusing on drastically decreasing analysis time and effort, enabling a flexible analysis setup to accommodate for the multitude of driveline configurations and varying investigation focus. To support this work Romax Technology recently received a Grant for Research and Development (GRD) from East Midlands Development Agency (emda).
The eighteen month funded project aims to develop specific and unique technology comprising engineering services and software solutions for advanced energy flow analysis, applied specifically to hybrid electric vehicles. The aim of this R&D project is to provide the efficiency analysis software to help development teams make design decisions concerning the trade-off between efficiency and cost.
Romax will also be exhibiting at the event, stand number 45, where they will be showcasing their unique energy flow analysis and hybrid and efficiency services. Visitors will also have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Guttenberg, Francois Michel, European Sales Manager and Dr. Christof Rachor, Head Applications Engineer on the stand.
The VDI Congress will discuss a number of important subjects for development engineers including the reductions in consumption and CO2, transmissions for alternative drives, concepts for utility and special vehicles as well as solutions for the specific requirements in the various regions.
The event takes place from the 30 June until the 1st July at Friedrichshafen in Germany.