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AVL CRUISE M

Multi-physical simulation platform for powertrain systems.

• Optimization of vehicle and vehicle components (fuel economy, vehicle performance)
• Extensive variety of vehicle and powertrain configurations possible
• Evaluation of new vehicle concepts (e.g., hybrid electric vehicle, fuel cell)
• Analysis of transient powertrain effects
• Design of vehicle thermal management systems
• Intelligent driver module for realistic reproduction of vehicle behavior

Description

AVL CRUISE™ M is a multi-physical simulation platform specialized for powertrain system simulations. It is used to configure and benchmark powertrain concepts, select and size components, and optimize powertrain systems in different domains like the mechanical driveline, electric networks and thermal sub-systems. Any powertrain type can be simulated like IC engine based, hybrid or pure electric.

The numerical solver of CRUISE M is combined with a highly flexible and detailed modeling approach, open to third-party tools and interface standards (FMI). This allows the re-use of CRUISE M subsystem and overall vehicle models anywhere in the powertrain development process: from efficiency studies and performance analysis, to validation and calibration on real-time Hardware in the Loop (HiL) and test systems.

CRUISE M models can be loaded into MATLAB and Simulink via a CMC S-function target export (S-function for Windows or S-function for Linux). This target produces an FMU archive which contains the exported model. Model parametrization is hidden since it is compiled into a binary. The exported FMU can be loaded in an S-function Simulink block or in a FMU Simulink block. Furthermore, MATLAB defined controllers can be embedded in the CRUISE M system simulation signal network i.e.,  an electric motor controller.

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Speed up the development of EV battery cells with parametric design optimization

Written by Apurva Gokhale

24 September 2024 · 5 min read

The global trend towards electrification, particularly with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) in the automotive industry, has created a growing demand for lithium-ion batteries. This is a relatively new domain and presents significant challenges for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and pack suppliers who often lack expertise in the chemical manufacturing process involved in making these batteries.

At the heart of lithium-ion batteries is the cell, the fundamental building block. Designing an optimal cell requires a thorough understanding of its requirements, which includes delivering high energy density, maintaining stable voltage output, ensuring a long cycle life, and demonstrating excellent thermal stability. It’s important to design a battery cell that can maintain required performance even when subjected to manufacturing tolerances.

To address this knowledge gap and improve the cell manufacturing process, we propose a novel simulation-driven approach which combines the AVL multi-physics system simulation solver with the modeFRONTIER process automation and design optimization software.

Overview of lithium-ion battery manufacturing process

Our simulation-driven design approach helps to identify optimal cell designs and predicts their performance in view of manufacturing tolerances. But, before we get into the specifics of our approach, let's take a look at the stages of the manufacturing process for lithium-ion batteries relevant to our simulation analysis:

• Dosing and mixing of the electrode slurry.
• Coating and drying of the electrode foil.
• Calendering of the electrode in a rolling mill.

The key steps of lithium-ion battery manufacturing process

The dosing and mixing of the electrode slurry is a crucial step in the manufacturing of cells. The electrode slurry for anode and cathode, consisting of active material, binder, additives and solvents, must be carefully blended to ensure the uniform distribution of these components. Proper dosing of the raw materials is essential to achieve the desired electrochemical performance of the battery.

The electrode foil is then coated with slurry using a slot die to ensure distribution. Monitoring the coating of the foil is critical to achieving the desired porosity and layer thickness. The coated sections are then sent through a drying channel to remove any excess moisture and solidify the coating.

Lastly, to ensure the uniform thickness of the electrode, which is essential to performance, the lithium-ion battery undergoes calendering. The foil is compressed with rollers and shaped into the final form. The roller pressure influences porosity and the energy density of the cell. An excessive roller pressure will cause stress cracks in the electrode.

Manage battery development with AVL advanced simulation technologies

Electrochemical experimentation for lithium-ion battery development is a time consuming process. It requires multiple hands-on steps to create a prototype cell and thorough testing which takes even more time. AVL is capable of virtualizing much of this process. It defines chemistries, assesses the resulting cell performance and analyzes the electrical, thermal, and safety characteristics of the battery system in a virtual environment — all at a fraction of the time and cost of the real experimental process. AVL offers comprehensive battery model variations in the AVL AST Toolset. Models can be simple, heat source models or P2D electrochemical models used in 1D system (CRUISE™ M) or 3D CFD (FIRE™ M) simulations. AVL’s physics simulation software also integrates with the Batemo Cell Library (from Batemo GmbH), allowing users to access highly accurate electrochemical models of named cells from manufacturers like LG Chem, Samsung, Sanyo, SKI and Toshiba, among others.

AVL CRUISE M Electrochemical Battery Model

The AVL CRUISE M electrochemical battery model is based on the Doyle Fuller Newman (or DFN aka P2D) model. In this model the cell is discretized along the x-direction (from anode to cathode), with the active material also being discretized radially. This is what gives it the name “pseudo-two-dimensional”. The advantage of using an electrochemical model lies in the fact that a battery’s performance is fundamentally a chemical phenomenon. By incorporating these chemical effects, users can gain insights into underlying processes such as anode potential and lithium plating which occur dynamically. Users can also access the sensitivity of cell performance of geometrical qualities, like anode and cathode thickness, as well as the particle radius of the active material. These insights are valuable for battery design and for BMS algorithm development. In this study we are in the early stages of the design process and focusing on how cell chemistry design is sensitive to manufacturing tolerances. The model we’re using is from our CRUISE M example library. It was developed internally at AVL and based on LG Chem INR18650-MJ1. It was developed using test data and literature sources.

Design variable overview and cross-section view of electrode

In the study, we vary six parameters with characteristics that are sensitive to the early- stage manufacturing of the battery cell. The slurry preparation, coating and drying, and calendering processes impact the layer thickness, porosity, and particle radius of the anode and cathode. These parameters were selected to understand how deviations in the manufacturing process could ultimately affect cell performance.

To understand the impact of these variables on cell performance, we need to apply statistical methods like those found in modeFRONTIER. It’s also crucial that CRUISE™ M can be executed repeatedly during the variation study, a process seamlessly integrated with modeFRONTIER. Given the computational complexities involved, the ability to generate accurate meta-models (Response Surface Models) is invaluable, which modeFRONTIER also provides. Together, these capabilities in a cohesive workflow between CRUISE™ M and modeFRONTIER create a powerful tool for battery chemistry assessment.

Optimize a battery cell simulation model with modeFRONTIER

After creating a model of the lithium-ion battery cell, we used modeFRONTIER to automate the simulation of an AVL Cruise M model. This automated simulation process enabled us to run design exploration and optimization studies, where various algorithms modified design parameters and analyzed their impact on key objectives. Here’s a closer look at this optimization-driven design process.

1. Integrate AVL Cruise M battery model into an automated simulation workflow

We used an automation workflow in modeFRONTIER to conduct various studies on simulation models. We considered six design variables related to the AVL battery model, including thickness, porosity, and particle radius for both cathode and anode. We also defined the lower and upper bounds for these variables. modeFRONTIER automatically adjusted the design variables based on the selected algorithm and fed them into the AVL Cruise simulation model to solve one particular charging profile. Response variables (outputs) included anode potential, power loss, and maximum charge.

Automated Cruise M simulation model within modeFRONTIER workflow

2. Perform Design of Experiments (DOE) and sensitivity analysis

For this study, we began by analyzing the relationships between input variables and output metrics through a Design of Experiments (DOE). By running 120 designs, we were able to determine that the charge is highly correlated with most of the input variables, whereas power loss is primarily influenced by the thickness of the cathode.

Sensitivity and correlations assessment

3. Apply design optimization to maximize charge and minimize power loss

Once we understood how input variables affect responses, our goal was to identify the optimal lithium-ion battery cell settings to maximize charge while minimizing power loss. These objectives were defined in the modeFRONTIER workflow. Given that power loss and charge are positively correlated (with higher charge leading to increased power loss), we set a constraint where the anode potential must always be greater than zero.

modeFRONTIER offers a variety of optimization algorithms, including the pilOPT, our proprietary multi-strategy algorithm. The software supports multiple objectives and constraints, making it well-suited for our design problem. With our goals defined and the algorithm selected, we then used modeFRONTIER to automate the optimization process and performed 500 simulations in just four hours. From the full set of Pareto front solutions, we selected the three designs that best balanced our objectives and constraints:

• Design 1: high charge, high power loss.
• Design 2: best compromise between charge and power loss.
• Design 3: low power loss, low charge.

maximize charge and minimize power loss with modeFRONTIER optimization algorithms

4. Understanding variations in performance due to manufacturing tolerances

While the optimization study provided us with three design solutions, further analysis was required to ensure that cell performance remained within the expected range despite uncertainties in design variables caused by manufacturing tolerances. Given AVL’s expertise in both modeling and manufacturing process of cells, we were aware of the distribution and tolerances for anode and cathode thickness, porosity and particle size. Consequently, we treated all six design variables as stochastic and modeled them with normal distributions to simulate real-world variations. We wanted answers to these questions:

• What distributions for charge and power loss result from the variations of these design variables?
• Can we estimate the standard deviations of these distributions and ensure that the performance remains within acceptable limits?
• Given an acceptable range of performance for these responses, how can we determine an acceptable range for our input variables?

With modeFRONTIER, we conducted robust analysis to study design behavior in the presence of variations of input variables. We started from the three designs selected from the Pareto solutions obtained from the previous optimization phase. Leveraging AVL’s expertise, we determined the standard deviation for thickness, porosity and particle size for both the cathode and anode. We then performed adaptive sparse polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) sampling. We obtained 250 samples per nominal design which allowed us to perform background mathematical operations and then derive a probability density function (PDF) of charge and power loss. These samples, seen in the figure below, transformed three designs from deterministic optimization into three clusters of likely solutions. Thanks to robust analysis, we were able to select a design that offers the best tradeoff between performance objectives and minimizes variation in performance.

Manufacturing tolerances assessment with modeFRONTIER

In summary, we’ve developed a comprehensive approach to the parametric design of lithium-ion battery cells. With AVL Cruise, we modeled and simulated the battery, while modeFRONTIER automated AVL simulations, allowing us to conduct multiple design exploration and optimization studies. Our objective was to understand the sensitivity and correlations among design variables,optimize performance criteria while respecting constraints. Additionally, we performed robust analysis around the selected designs to ensure that charge and power loss performance remained within acceptable limits despite uncertainties in design variables. Here’s a breakdown of our next steps to expand the scope of the project:

• Incorporate additional charging profiles and different temperatures. These factors are critical in mobility and battery performance.
• Study the impact of aging on battery performance.
• Perform reverse multi-objective robust design optimization (MORDO) with modeFRONTIER to determine the tolerances for design variables required to maintain performance within the desired range.

Apurva received B.Tech. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Pune and Clemson University respectively. She has been working at ESTECO as an application engineer for 10 years. In this role she loves interacting with both the end users and product teams in Italy. She enjoys working with ESTECO's customers on their design optimization, democratization and data science needs.

modeFRONTIER is the leading software solution for simulation process automation and design optimization

Design better products faster

PowerCell lands SEK 165m deal for hydrogen fuel cells on Italian cruise ships

PowerCell has secured an SEK 165m ($16.3m) order for its hydrogen fuel cell systems from an unnamed Italian marine original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for installation on commercial cruise ships.

Consisting of 56 units of its new Marine System 225, the order will see more than 6.3MW used to provide auxiliary power to a ship’s internal electricity system, with another 3.2MW will be dedicated to internal testing.

A separate 3.2MW will also be installed onboard a different vessel.

With deliveries expected to kick off in the middle of 2025, the Swedish fuel cell firm says the installations represent one “world’s largest” marine hydrogen fuel cell systems to date.

Various shipbuilders and cruise operators have been exploring the use of hydrogen fuel cells onboard their vessels.

Two years ago, luxury shipbuilder Fincantieri, agreed to construct two cruise ships equipped with 6MW of fuel cells to power the onboard hotel operations with MSC Group’s Cruise Division. 769" data-ag-order="0" data-ag-v2="1">

Read more: Hydrogen to power luxury cruise ships

Although fuel cells are unlikely to power the propulsion of large vessels, many proponents have highlighted the potential of the technology in providing emissions-free port-side power.

Richard Berkling, CEO of PowerCell, said, “We deliver a fuel cell solution that is not only climate-friendly, but also provides the advantage of reduced noise from the ship. This order confirms the importance of hydrogen-electric solutions for the marine industry.”

Get up to speed on hydrogen with Class of H2

At a time when hydrogen is the new gold rush for so many investors and start-ups alike, and the skills gap risks becoming the skills gulf, H2 View’s  Class of H2   presents a series of hydrogen training modules.

Our first masterclass is created to bring your hydrogen fundamentals up-to-speed, covering the basics, e-fuels and ammonia, low-carbon and green hydrogen production, turquoise hydrogen production, biomass pathways, and underground hydrogen storage.

To book your on-demand training session, click here . Or you can reach out to the Class of H2 team at +44 1872 225031 or  [email protected] .

Charlie joined H2 View as a News Journalist in May 2022 before taking up the role of Editor in January 2024. He graduated from Falmouth University in June 2021 and has previous experience working across a variety of multimedia platforms, including coverage of the 2019 UK General Election.

PowerCell to supply hydrogen solutions for Norwegian ferries

Bosch and PowerCell to collaborate on fuel cell stacks

PowerCell reports net sales increase with fuel cell interest from marine and aviation

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• AVL eSUITE™ for Fuel Cell and Electrolyzers

Design Fuel Cells Faster With AVL eSUITE™

Nowadays, simply optimizing a fuel cell model is not enough. To strive for higher performance and lifetime, engineers need the right tool to deliver key insights faster. And this is where the strength of AVL eSUITE™ excels. The scalable multi-physics solutions enable engineers to develop components of fuel cells, stacks, and systems at a whole new level. The all-in-one solution comes with two powerful tools, AVL FIRE™ M for 3D simulation and AVL CRUISE™ M for 1D Simulation   at the system level. Learn in this article how classic 3D modeling with FIRE M and its sophisticated PEM Fuel Cell Performance App help you focus on what really matters, especially in the field of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) development. Thanks to the outstanding software solution platform, you benefit from a lean and streamlined simulation workflow that facilitates the execution of simulation tasks and their integration into the development process. Click by click, you are intuitively guided through the entire process – from preparing the mesh to setting up the simulation to performing the calculation to post-processing. Using FIRE M helps you to meet the engineering requirements by providing insights into the influencing physical parameters, such as species transport and conversion processes as well as degradation effects. Plus, the homogenized channel approach lets you accelerate your fuel cell design at scale. In this article:

Highest Efficiency Made Possible With AVL eSUITE™

Take your fuel cell development to the next level, get better results due to a sophisticated approach, shifting up gears in fuel cell performance.

Save Prototype Costs by Using Actionable Degradation Models  

Bring agility to design and achieve ultimate performance with a go-to solution. From transport to electrochemical conversion processes: Gain  important insights. Profit from one simulation environment that considers the catalyst layer on both the cathode and anode side, membranes, and much more. Easily model multiphase flows, heat transfer, and electric/ionic potential in just a few clicks. Create meaningful design variations under consideration of local temperature or local degradation intensities and optimize flow fields, cooling channels, gas diffusion layers (GDL) properties, or other components. The 3D high-fidelity solution helps you to ensure optimum gas media and coolant flow characteristics improving the entire stack's hydrogen/oxygen supply and temperature distribution.  

More than just unique: eSUITE revolutionizes the way you simulate low-temperature fuel cells and stack performance. Go beyond workflow efficiency. Create meshes, set up solvers, and build physical models easier than ever before. Only the FIRE M PEM Fuel Cell Performance Solution App offers an end-to-end workflow with an automated simulation, so you can significantly optimize your throughput and turnaround time. It navigates you step-by-step through the entire design process and helps you achieve results that matter thanks to an unparalleled fail-safe process.  

Do more with less. A common challenge in terms of fuel cell CFD simulation is the enormous number of 100 million+ computational elements. Most probably they are stored locally, consuming a lot of CPU resources and calculation time during the simulation. With eSUITE and its homogenized channel approach, you can start capturing the entire geometry of the fuel cell with fewer hardware requirements and in less time. By fully preserving all physical, electrochemical, and transport processes, you can transform cooling channels and adjacent parts of the bipolar plate into larger macroscopic structures. Rely on a unique, functionality-tailored approach that reduces real-life cell and stack computation models on the fly without affecting accuracy. In addition, depending on the configuration, you can significantly speed up the turnaround time by decreasing the number of computational elements up to 50 times.  

PEM fuel cell transport processes and their interactions are highly complex. Therefore, understanding physical behavior is essential to radically cut development time and costs. eSUITE enables you to quickly identify relevant influencing factors such as transient effects (flooding, starvation, and hot spots), capture optimal operating conditions, and explore multiple material parameters. Dig deeper and analyze physical transport processes identified in the PEMFC to avoid performance losses:

Two-phase flow in channels and porous layers

Three-phase enthalpy transport

Gas species transport in flow channels and porous layers

Dissolved water transport in the ionomer phase

Dissolved gas species transport in the ionomer phase

Electrochemical reactions in the catalyst layers

Reactant transport in agglomerates

Save Prototype Costs by Using Degradation Models

Achieving an ultimate lifetime of a cell is hard. The unique 3D multi-physics solution has set itself the goal to master this challenge and provide a hands-on simulation experience that addresses degradation and ageing – normally affected by multiple stress factors. Gear up with multiple degradation models that unveil the complexities of ageing phenomena in catalyst layers and membranes. They give you an enhanced understanding of the impact of these drivers on the fuel cell – thus saving you tremendous prototype costs.

Carbon corrosion with platinum oxidation: From catalyst layer thinning due to carbon losses to platinum oxide production to CO2 formation – no matter the degradation challenge, identify critical parameters that easily stress certain operating conditions.

Ionomer degradation: Avoid long-term performance losses related to ionic conductivity decline, membrane and catalyst layer thinning, or hydrogen fluoride and CO2 production.

Transient PEM fuel cell phenomena: Accelerate your analysis and evaluation efficiency and optimize your calculation power in simulating the membrane hydration/dehydration behavior and how it is influenced by the sorption/desorption of water in the catalyst layers.

Platinum dissolution and redeposition: Together with the ionomer degradation model, gain valuable insight into realistic aging processes on particle size. Benefit from an in-depth analysis of the effects of the catalyst layer and membrane thinning, reduction of exchange current density, and much more. Or deepen your insights with a compelling sub-cycling numerical solution approach that enables a larger number of voltage or current cycles across a longer period.

Streamline your fuel cell development time throughout your entire simulation project and experience model quality like never before. Click here   and learn more about the core features of eSUITE.

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Testing solutions for every testing task, from mobile applications, as part of on-board power generation, to stationary applications in combined heat and power modules.

The solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a promising solution for the energy transition towards a sustainable hydrogen economy. 

With its operating temperature of at least 650°C, the SOFC is considered a high-temperature fuel cell and, in conjunction with the utilisation of the available thermal energy, enables significantly higher overall efficiencies of > 80%.

AVL can look back on over 20 years of experience in the field of engineering and testing, which flows into the design of our test solutions.

We cover the entire development process, from the simulation of individual components to the testing of fuel cell systems and end applications.

How has SOFC testing evolved?

Over the past 20 years, we have gained a great deal of experience in SOFC development and have completed around 100 development projects. The requirements for practical verification, but also the available options for realisation , have constantly evolved and now help our customers to achieve their development goals.

Hardware and software solutions for SOFC test beds

SOFC technology is currently still at the development stage, both in terms of design and the corresponding operating strategy.The main focus of test benches in the development environment is on design validation and proof of performance of the test specimen under specified conditions; in addition, operating strategies for start-up, operation and shutdown are developed, taking into account efficiency and minimising the potential for damage.Our hardware and software solutions in conjunction with established automation provide them with all the necessary framework conditions and the corresponding flexibility.

Simulation and emulation

One of the biggest challenges when starting an SOFC development program from scratch is co-simulation and emulation. We overcome these challenges because of our intensive SOFC research. With this background knowledge and our sophisticated simulation toolchain, we first use virtual models and later replace them with actual hardware components. We link these simulation capabilities to our various test benches.

We believe in SOFC technology because it will enable a major leap in efficiency through the intelligent use of resources. This great potential for cost and energy efficiency makes SOFC a technology that has a great future ahead of it.

- Michael Standke , System Line Manager Stationary Fuel Cells, AVL

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We support you in the design and development of your own SOFC laboratory. We offer a full range of services, from consulting, engineering, management and procurement of equipment to the construction and successful acceptance of the laboratory.

A gas conditioning and consumption solution for hydrogen and other gaseous fuels. Learn more about this dedicated product to safely supply and condition gases for the testbed usage.

The Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is an innovative stimulus response testing technology for checking the frequency-dependent internal resistance of electrochemical cells such as batteries or fuel cells.

Enhancing fuel cell system optimization and testing with simulation.

Testing solutions for every development step from cell to system for all applications from passenger car to aviation

The SOFC (solid oxide fuel cell) system test bed (TB) is capable of testing units from 5 kWe (net power) up to 400 kWe (net power) under different operating scenarios.

Experts all agree: The energy system of the future is carbon neutral. However, there is less of a consensus when it comes to how to provide energy affordably, easily, and reliably. At AVL we deliver answers and solutions.

AVL balance-of-plant (BoP) testing solutions are modular and tailored test beds to emulate the real load of a fuel cell system.

AVL PUMA 2™ Fuel Cell is our intuitive automation system for highly dynamic fuel cell system testing. It is the global industry standard for testbed automation.

AVL designed the integrated Fuel Cell System Testbed to provide highly efficient and accurate testing while minimizing integration efforts. Reusing our reliable and proven modules and transferring our R&D expertise and maturity into a compact solution was crucial. 

AVL PUMA 2™ Fuel Cell Stack and Cell is a state-of-the-art automation system for fuel cell stack and cell testing 

In the search for green and sustainable mobility, AVL has addressed the challenges of developing and validating automotive fuel cell systems – from a single cell up to complete systems for various applications. 

AVL offers complete solutions for decentralized power generation.

We Bring SOFC Testing Technology to the World

Our engineering teams work for leading manufacturers and research institutes around the world on the development and testing of fuel cells. We have helped to shape the development methodology for a wide range of performance classes and application areas and have developed a corresponding product and solution portfolio to support them with their individual challenges.

This exclusive webinar gets to grips with all things maritime mobility. 

New Technologies demand not just new testing methods and testing devices but also customized safety measures. 

World's first test field for fuel cell propulsion systems in the megawatt range

New cooperation