Electric powertrain simulation, from battery pack to motor housing
Understand how the battery, inverter and motor in your electric powertrain share heat, coolant and space, and where the next kilowatt of power or degree of margin will come from.
An electric powertrain is a set of components that each run close to a temperature limit and share one cooling system. Cells age faster when they run hot, and a pack with a wide temperature spread ages unevenly. Power modules lose margin with every degree at the junction, and motor windings and magnets have hard limits of their own. A change to one component’s cooling, such as a new cold plate or a different flow split, alters what reaches the others.
More about electric powertrain simulation
Electric powertrain simulation studies those components individually and together. Battery models give cell temperatures and their spread across a module or pack under your drive cycle or charge profile. Inverter models give junction and baseplate temperatures for the losses you specify. Motor models combine electromagnetic losses with the heat paths to the housing and jacket. Structural models of pack enclosures, housings and mounts cover stiffness, strength and the loads from the vehicle or machine.
The engineers who run the study are design engineers as well, so a revised cooling plate, busbar or housing comes back as geometry that can go straight into the detailed design, drawings and production of the part.
Typical systems: passenger and commercial vehicle drivetrains, off-highway and construction machinery, marine propulsion, e-bikes and light electric vehicles, and battery energy storage modules.
What a powertrain study tells you
How even are cell temperatures across the pack?
Maximum cell temperature and the spread between the hottest and coolest cells, under fast charging and your heaviest drive cycle.
Is the cooling plate doing its job?
Flow distribution between channels and parallel plates, coolant temperature rise and pressure drop, so the pump and the plates are matched.
What junction temperatures will the inverter reach?
Junction and baseplate temperatures of IGBT or silicon carbide modules for the losses you supply, through the interface material and cold plate.
Where does motor heat go?
Winding, end winding and magnet temperatures, with the split of heat between the cooling jacket, the shaft and the surrounding air.
Which component limits continuous power?
Whether the battery, inverter or motor reaches its limit first at a given coolant flow and inlet temperature, so cooling effort goes where it raises the rating.
Can the housings take the loads?
Stress and deflection in pack enclosures, inverter and motor housings and mounts under vehicle loads, vibration and the pressure in coolant passages.
What we model
Battery pack thermal
Cells, modules, busbars and cooling plates, with heat generation from your cell data, over charge, discharge and rest periods.
Cooling plates and coolant loops
Channel layouts, pin fins, manifolds and parallel branches in water-glycol circuits, compared on temperature uniformity and pressure drop.
Power electronics cooling
Inverters, DC-DC converters and on-board chargers, with power modules, thermal interface materials and capacitors on their cold plates.
Motor electromagnetic and thermal
Torque and losses from an electromagnetic model passed into a thermal model of the stator, rotor and housing.
Busbar and conductor heating
Joule heating in busbars, connectors and cables at your current profile, with the temperature rise at joints and terminals.
Housings, mounts and enclosures
Static, vibration, fatigue and impact studies of pack enclosures, motor and gearbox housings and brackets, for the load cases you define.
Before you start
What to send us
- CAD of the pack, inverter, motor or full powertrain assembly (STEP or native)
- Cell data: heat generation or internal resistance, thermal properties and limits
- Inverter and motor losses at the operating points of interest, or the motor design data
- Coolant type, flow rate, inlet temperature and the pump you plan to use
- Drive cycles, charge profiles or duty points that define the worst cases
- Mounting points, load cases and any vibration profile you design to
Do we need an electrochemical model of the cells?
Not for most thermal questions. Heat generation from your cell supplier’s data, or from internal resistance across the state of charge, is usually enough to predict pack temperatures and spread.
How is the electromagnetic side of the motor handled?
An electromagnetic model gives torque and the copper, iron and magnet losses at each operating point. Those losses become heat sources in the thermal model, so motor temperatures follow from the design rather than from an assumed loss figure.
Can you study one component at a time?
Yes. A study can start with the pack or the inverter cold plate alone and add the other components when the shared coolant loop becomes the question.
Do you work on non-automotive powertrains?
The physics is the same in construction machinery, marine drives and industrial vehicles, though duty cycles and cooling arrangements differ, so the worst cases are set from your application.
Send us your powertrain
