Special Issue "Hybrid Vehicles"

Guest Editor
Dr. Srdjan Lukic
Advanced Transportation Energy Center, North Carolina State University, 1017 Main Campus Drive, Suite 2100 Raleigh, NC 27606, USA
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Guest Editor
Dr. Giovanni Pede
Dipartimento TER, Casaccia Research Centre, Via Anguillarese, 301 00060 Roma, Italy
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Dear Colleagues,

Hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) constitute an interesting solution for the reduction of fuel consumption and pollutant emissions with respect to conventional vehicles, while maintaining comparable performances and ranges. They can also be realized with limited modifications to existing manufacturing processes; moreover, they can normally operate not only in hybrid mode, but also in purely electric mode, this way reaching the condition of zero emissions.

The basis of the growth of hybrid technology is electric storage, and electrochemical batteries, and even supercapacitors, are researched and developed in a variety of chemistries and configurations to better meet the continuously changing technical and economical requirements for battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), but, to actually achieve the potential advantages of HEVs the powertrain structure and the energy management logic have to be carefully selected and matched.

The special issue covers current trends and future developments of HEV technology, including both mechanical as well as electrical engineering aspects.

Dr. Srdjan Lukic
Dr. Giovanni Pede
Guest Editors

Submission

All manuscripts should be submitted to energies@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal is 800 CHF per accepted paper.

• electric vehicles
• hybrid-electric vehicles
• electrochemical batteries
• supercapacitors
• power management strategy
• modelling
• simulations
• fuel economy

Feature Papers

Title: Feasibility Assessment of Turbo-Hybrid Vehicles
Author: Enrico Sciubba
Affiliation: Department of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering, University of Roma 1 “La Sapienza”, Roma, Italy; E-Mail:
enrico.sciubbaniroma1.it
Abstract: The paper presents a feasibility assessment of a prototype configuration of a Low Emission Turbo-Hybrid-Electric Vehicle designed by the University of Roma 1. The concept (a series hybrid in which the thermal engine is a small turbogas and the traction is fully electric) was demonstrated in a series of previous works by the Author’s group at the Department of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering of the University of Roma La Sapienza. Some experiments were also conducted in the “Casaccia” Laboratories of the Italian Agency for Advanced Energy Conversion and Sustainable Development (ENEA) on a small gas turbine set, to investigate the performance of the propulsive unit (turbine plus batteries and electrical motor) under the European vehicular ECE emission tests.
After successful completion of these tests, a further analysis was carried out to identify an “optimal” hybridization ratio with respect both to driveability and to fuel consumption: the results led to the conclusion that such an absolute “optimal” configuration does not exist, because not only the system performance, but also the absolute and relative sizes (i.e., nameplate power) of the turbines and of the battery pack depend substantially on the type of driving mission the car is required to perform. The study presented in this paper describes the logic of an engineering procedure Designers may use to compile the technical specifications of a turbo-hybrid vehicle in a series configuration. Both theoretical and practical issues are addressed, from the “optimal” degree of hybridization to the types of control logic that are necessary to ensure a good driveability.