MINIMIZATION OF ENERGY CRISIS BY INTRODUCING RANGE EXTENDER IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES – EVALUATION OF BATTERY PACK SIZING AND ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Abstract

Fossil fuel consumption has been increased rapidly from last couple of decades. It is increasing import of crude oil and air pollution. Pakistan facing energy crisis due to high utilization of burning fuel on national level which has gained prime attention for industries as well as consumers. Individual user is facing fuel cost management issues as fuel prices getting increased. Leaving us behind with an option to think of electric vehicles. Pakistan has been started to import hybrid vehicles on big scale but it is not enough to support everyone‘s needs. A kind of electric vehicle I known as Range Extended Electric Vehicles (REEV) which works with an on board charging device to increase the driving range. The most commonly used range extenders are internal combustion (IC) engines, fuel-cells, and micro gas turbines (MGT). Range extenders based on micro gas turbine (MGT) technology are being promoted in electric vehicles (EV) in order to reduce the battery size and extend the driving range. MGT offers higher power density, fuel flexibility, lower weight and good efficiency (with recuperation) compared to conventional reciprocating engines. MGT facilitates a relatively smaller battery pack, which ultimately can reduce the capital and maintenance cost of electric vehicles. Despite its advantages, MGT incurs small-scale design issues related to component performance, heat transfer between hot and cold sections and manufacturing limitations. In this paper, the design of an MGT has been studied simultaneously with the battery bank size and charging time analogy with an aim to evaluate their conjoint operation. In addition, the influence of MGT small-scale effects on battery pack recharging has been presented. For the study, Gas Turbine Simulation Program (GSP) has been extensively used together with detailed battery pack calculations. Comparison between sizing of the battery and MGT design is a critical outcome of this research.