Abstract
KEYWORDS – system simulation, commercial vehicle, pneumatic system, energy efficiency, virtual product development
ABSTRACT
During the development of commercial vehicles, the dimensioning of the pneumatic system is of great importance. The compressed air system provides the energy for the braking system, the air suspension of the vehicle, the door opening system, the gearbox etc. Many different legal and customer requirements have to be met. The behavior of the equipment is defined by a wide range of factors which are affected by the available package space, environmental conditions like atmosphere and ambient temperatures, component size and the chosen materials. All these factors affect energy efficiency within the pneumatic system during operation.
Driven by fuel consumption and the need to reduce CO2 emissions, energy efficiency of a system and the identification of energy losses become increasingly important.
As changes in both the production vehicle and the prototype are difficult and costly to realize, virtual product design plays a crucial role in making design decisions at an early stage of the development.
This article outlines the possibilities to effectively support the development process for pneumatic systems of commercial vehicles using SimulationX in combination with other software tools (LDYN – proprietary longitudinal dynamics software, STAR-CCM+ - CFD-Code). This accounts for the growing demand to design and optimize pneumatic systems through simulation early on in the development. To this end, the authors describe
- how to extend SimulationX software libraries with custom model components,
- the modeling process including parameterization and validation, and
- the workflow for simulating models and parameter variations effectively.
Finally, they provide a selection of different component designs that can be simulated and highlight the potential of SimulationX to successfully handle and analyze variants with extended, user-specific procedures. Eventually, the preferred design will be used in a model to analyze the temperature behavior in typical load cases and under certain environmental conditions. By using the presented software package, accurate predictions for the pneumatic system behavior of commercial vehicles can be provided at early design stages prior to building a prototype. The obtained simulation results are essential for an optimal system layout, for its dimensioning and the way how components and pipes are arranged. The presented virtual tests of the pneumatic system can thus help to reduce real physical test iterations significantly.