As the only state leading engineering laboratory for Electric Vehicles (EV) in China, the National Engineering Laboratory for EV, established in 2008, is regarded as the state-authorized institute for electric vehicle motors and controllers testing. With the strength in new technology development, the lab also bridges the academic research and industrial application successfully.
The NELEV has been equipped with almost 68 different types of testing platforms, based on which researchers could be able to test the comprehensive performance of EV motors and controllers, investigate the structural/mechanical behavior of EV key components, explore the EV system integration control algorithm and simulation technology, and develop and validate advanced EV databased systems as well. In particular, the high-performance dynamometers for vehicle drive motor system testing is specifically aimed to meet the R&D testing requirements of vehicle motors and controllers for full-model vehicles. The multi-axle driving chassis dynamometer system with 8×8 drum test bench can also fulfill the failure safety and different control modes test for vehicles with wheelbase less than 12 meters, and can be extended to test the performance of braking recovery under different conditions.
Besides, the development and testing platform of key components is used to test key components such as electric power steering (EPS), electric brake, air conditioner, etc. Additionally, EV system integration control and simulation technology platform can be used to fulfill the following tasks for whole vehicle: (1) Overall layout and matching calculation (2) Styling design and light-weight design (3) Semi-physical simulation and prediction of control strategies (4) Structure safety and high-voltage safety simulation, testing and calibration, etc.
The representative equipments are described in detail as follows:
1) EV motors and controllers testing base
EV motors and controllers testing base is the first vehicle drive motor testing institute certificated by China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) and China Metrology Accreditation (CMA).
This testing base is equipped with several high-performance dynamometers for vehicle motor system testing as shown in Fig. 3.1, with the power range up to 460 kW, of which the typical equipments are the 440kW dynamometer test platform, and AC-Dynamometer dynamic test platforms with the power level of 30kW, 150kW, 250kW and 460kW. The existing capability of the platform covers the speed up to 20000 r/min and the torque up to 3600Nm. The equipped facilities also include high-performance dynamic battery simulator from AVL, Digatron and Bitrode with the output power up to 250kW, output voltage up to 750V, and output current up to 600A.
The testing base is also equipped with some high-performance parameter measurement instruments, such as power analyzer of LEM and Yokogawa, dynamic torque and speed sensor of HBM, fuel consumption meter of AVL and HORIBA, related inductive load tester, insulation tester, and withstand voltage tester, etc. Additionally, the testing base is also equipped with several environmental testing equipments including high-low temperature testing chamber from 0.5 to 73 cubic meters, salt spary testing chamber, temperature-humidity-vibration test platform, water-proof and dust-proof testing equipments and temperature shock testing chamber, etc.
The National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles has become the state authorized testing institute of EV motors and controllers, and completed more than 300 motor system testing tasks for both domestic and foreign automobile companies. The contribution has been highly recognized by the industries, some of which has been formulated into 5 national industrial standards.
2) Multi-Axle Driving Chassis Dynamometer System
The multi-axle driving chassis dynamometer system is the ONLY 8×8 drum test platform among Chinese universities, which include 8 independent dynamometer systems with the capability of flexible adjustment of the wheelbase of each system according to the vehicle’s wheelbase, as shown in Fig. 3.2. This system aims to complete chassis dynamoter test, and failure safety and different control modes test for vehicles with wheelbase less than 12 meters. Moreover, it can be used to test the performance of braking recovery under different conditions. The power loading device can run in both clockwise and counterclockwise sequence when loading and dragging. The basic features of this testing platform include: (1) The absolute error of absorbed power no more than ±1.25 KW, (2) Response time of power loading no more than 6 ms, (3) Response time of closed-loop step excitation no more than 12 ms, (4) Computational time of acceleration no more than 100 ms, (5) Maximal supporting weight of single drum 6500 kg, (6) Maximal speed of each drum 130 km/h, (7) Inertia simulation precision ±2.27kg.
