A Simulation Platform for Vehicle Themal Management System

New challenges are arising in vehicle thermal managing systems as air-pollution and fuel consumption rules become more rigid. Therefore, automobile manufactures have to face more competitive pressure. The use of software and hardware-in-loop (HIL) simulation is essential to develop and validate new real-time applications of engine, air conditioner and battery thermal management systems. This paper presents a simulation platform developed to work in a joint-simulation approach of thermal system and control system. The joint-simulation platform functions in a closed loop integrating KULI and Matlab/Simulink, which make it possible to validate both the capacity of thermal system and new control policies without a real system controller at the same time. The steady-state performance of the simulator correlates well with the provided manufacturer's curve. The simulation platform could provide substantial improvements to the thermal management system performance.