Design and simulation of a hybrid flywheel bus

Abstract

Stringent emission regulations and customer demands are the most challenges of the vehicle manufacturers. In the recent researches and new designs, many hybrid powertrains have been focused and proposed to improve fuel consumption and emission of vehicles. Since the flywheel has the least energy conversion between diverse hybrid choices, its efficiency is more appropriate. In this paper, a parallel hybrid flywheel bus with an IVT transmission has been designed and simulated. The simulation has been done by a developed dynamic feed-forward model. Moreover, a simple rule-based controlling system for this hybrid flywheel bus has been proposed and implemented. The results show decrease in fuel consumption of the bus. Furthermore, fuel consumption is analyzed according to energy capacity of flywheel; therefore, a proper flywheel which is a trade-off between fuel consumption and energy capacity is offered.