Testing of electric powertrains within V-Cycle and Digital Triplets

In recent years, pollution and the growing need to adopt sustainable energy sources, together with constant technological advancement, have profoundly influenced our lives and driven business decisions, particularly in the automotive sector. European regulations banning the sale of cars with internal combustion engines (ICE) starting from 2035 have pushed car manufacturers to invest more and more resources in the total or partial electrification of vehicles. A further important factor that has been affecting society for some time is the circular economy which allows the reuse and reconditioning of existing products. By combining these various needs, the concept of retrofitting emerged, enabling the conversion of vehicles with internal combustion engines into totally electric vehicles. In this context, my thesis project took place at the Custom 2.0, a partner company of ElectroFit System in the retrofit project whose design and development are based on the concept of the V-cycle and Digital Triplets. The V-cycle concept in engineering is a waterfall methodology combined with elements of iterative development used for the design and validation of complex systems. The innovative concept of Digital Triplets fits into this context and involves the continuous integration of three related models: the Virtual Prototype which integrates numerical simulations, the Semi-real Prototype which combines virtual model with testing of the entire or partial powertrain on the test bench and the Real Prototype of the vehicle which allows you to carry out test in real conditions. This thesis will explore an introduction about the V-Cycle, with a general description of the steps and Digital Triplets. In particular, it will be threated the testing phases of each of the three prototypes, starting from the creation of a prototype to the execution of the test and how the data generated by each prototype is stored, organized and compared. This approach enables continuous integration into product development and identifies future developments to consider. Furthermore, a chapter will cover the testing phase that I carried out on the Semi-real Prototype such as the compliance test of the integrated motor-inverter system in which the real performance and efficiency of the system in different operating situations were verified and the UN/ECE R85 approval test using the entire cooling system mounted on the test bench.