Design strategy for improving the energy efficiency in series hydraulic/electric synergy system

Battery is a vital subsystem in an electric vehicle with regenerative braking system. The energy efficiency of an electric vehicle is improved by storing the regenerated energy in an electric battery, during braking, and reusing it during subsequent acceleration. Battery possesses a relatively poor power density and slow charging of regenerated energy, when compared to hydro-pneumatic accumulators. A series hydraulic/electric synergy system – an energy efficient mechatronics system is proposed to overcome the drawbacks in the conventional electric vehicle with regenerative braking. Even though, electric battery provides higher energy density than the accumulator system, optimal sizing of the hydro-pneumatic accumulator and other process parameters in the system to provide better energy density and efficiency. However, a trade-off prevails between the system energy delivered and energy consumed. This gives rise to a multiple objective problem. The proposed multi-objective design optimization procedure based on an evolutionary strategy algorithm maximizes the energy efficiency of the system. The system simulation results after optimization show that, the optimal system parameters increase the energy efficiency by 3% and hydraulic regeneration efficiency by 17.3%. The suggested design methodology provides a basis for the design of a series hydraulic/electric synergy system as energy efficient and zero emission system.