TY - GEN
T1 - Improving energy efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles
T2 - FISITA 2012 World Automotive Congress
AU - Laurikko, Juhani
AU - Erkkilä, Kimmo
AU - Laine, Petri
AU - Nylund, Nils-Olof
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Today's advanced market economy relies in logistic
operations that are both reliable and timely. Road
transport is a major contributor to this daily logistics,
but also a major consumer of fossil fuels, hence
producing a lot of carbon emissions. Furthermore, most of
the technologies recently introduced to cut down fuel use
and emissions in passenger cars are not practical in
heavy trucks running long-distances. This paper focuses
on how to more systematically address the energy process
and gives some case-examples of progress made in
real-world HDVs. Several studies at VTT have been
addressing energy use in HDVs. It has become evident that
for real improvements in energy efficiency, the complete
vehicle must be taken into consideration. We must have
better understanding of the factors influencing the
energy demand, and not just how to make engines more fuel
efficient. For that purpose a break-down of energy use in
a heavy truck-trailer combination has been made. The
objective for this approach was to give proportions for
the various contributors for the energy use, and be able
to assess, what kind of progress in each field could be
possible. Apart from the holistic and systemic approach,
we need metrics to measure the energy consumption in such
a way that the results reflect real-world situation as
good as possible. Using a chassis dynamometer capable of
taking a full-size vehicle and replicating its on-road
driving operations has proven to be an excellent tool in
terms of precision and repeatability of the results.
Adding also road gradient (uphill/downhill) simulation
further enhances the realism, and improves the accuracy
how closely the duty-cycle is reflected in engine
speed/load sequence compared to on-road driving.
Eventually, this match is the measure for the success of
the method. In case studies several areas of energy use
has been addressed, and the potentials for savings in
real-use has been determined. These include e.g., choice
of tyres for optimum rolling losses without compromising
safety and most recently aerodynamic improvements for the
complete truck-trailer combination for reduced drag. The
paper will portray the achievable energy savings
identified in these studies. Test results demonstrate
that energy efficiency of heavy trucks can be improved,
but for a long-standing and substantial impact the
complete design of the vehicle should be viewed from the
energy efficiency perspective.
AB - Today's advanced market economy relies in logistic
operations that are both reliable and timely. Road
transport is a major contributor to this daily logistics,
but also a major consumer of fossil fuels, hence
producing a lot of carbon emissions. Furthermore, most of
the technologies recently introduced to cut down fuel use
and emissions in passenger cars are not practical in
heavy trucks running long-distances. This paper focuses
on how to more systematically address the energy process
and gives some case-examples of progress made in
real-world HDVs. Several studies at VTT have been
addressing energy use in HDVs. It has become evident that
for real improvements in energy efficiency, the complete
vehicle must be taken into consideration. We must have
better understanding of the factors influencing the
energy demand, and not just how to make engines more fuel
efficient. For that purpose a break-down of energy use in
a heavy truck-trailer combination has been made. The
objective for this approach was to give proportions for
the various contributors for the energy use, and be able
to assess, what kind of progress in each field could be
possible. Apart from the holistic and systemic approach,
we need metrics to measure the energy consumption in such
a way that the results reflect real-world situation as
good as possible. Using a chassis dynamometer capable of
taking a full-size vehicle and replicating its on-road
driving operations has proven to be an excellent tool in
terms of precision and repeatability of the results.
Adding also road gradient (uphill/downhill) simulation
further enhances the realism, and improves the accuracy
how closely the duty-cycle is reflected in engine
speed/load sequence compared to on-road driving.
Eventually, this match is the measure for the success of
the method. In case studies several areas of energy use
has been addressed, and the potentials for savings in
real-use has been determined. These include e.g., choice
of tyres for optimum rolling losses without compromising
safety and most recently aerodynamic improvements for the
complete truck-trailer combination for reduced drag. The
paper will portray the achievable energy savings
identified in these studies. Test results demonstrate
that energy efficiency of heavy trucks can be improved,
but for a long-standing and substantial impact the
complete design of the vehicle should be viewed from the
energy efficiency perspective.
KW - heavy transport vehicles
KW - energy use
KW - energy savings
KW - test methodology
KW - design
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-33835-9_6
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-33835-9_6
M3 - Conference article in proceedings
SN - 978-364233834-2
T3 - Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering
SP - 51
EP - 63
BT - Proceedings of the FISITA 2012 World Automotive Congress
PB - Springer
Y2 - 27 November 2012 through 30 November 2012
ER -
