Energy Management and Battery Testing for the Analysis of a Diesel-electric Hybrid Locomotive Powertrain

Open Access
- Author:
- Wilson, Andrew J
- Graduate Program:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- March 28, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Christopher Rahn, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Hosam Kadry Fathy, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Mary I Frecker, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- hybrid
locomotive
powertrain
optimal control
energy management
battery
HIL
SIL
hardware-in-the-loop - Abstract:
- Development of optimized control strategies to coordinate the internal combustion (IC) engine and battery system in series hybrid locomotives allow the advantages of the hybrid system to be fully realized. This work investigates the benefits of advancing control techniques that are state-of-the-art to more computationally involved strategies. By developing models and simulations of real world locomotive drive cycles, advanced control hybrid locomotives are evaluated. Simulation of power management control strategies allows for fine tuning of the logic involved and benchmarking against state-of-the-art control strategies used today. In this work, a hybrid locomotive powertrain plant model is developed for the purpose of analyzing the effectiveness’ of different power management strategies. The logic of each control strategy is tuned and analyzed in software-in-the-loop (SIL) simulations. These control strategies are then applied to a physical battery system for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation. HIL simulation is especially valuable in the study of the performance of proposed control techniques on full scale hardware in real time. Analysis of HIL results is also used to validate the accuracy of the proposed models used for SIL simulations. Once the SIL model is known to be accurate, rapid simulation varying all significant parameters is implemented to gain an understanding if the hybrid design makes improvement over standard locomotives in service today. Results from these simulations are used to analyze the effectiveness of a proposed hybrid powertrain in meeting goals desired in the locomotive industry.