Vibration reduction of an electric vehicle heat exchanger by controlling the polarization of its ferroelectric ceramics

The growing requirements in terms of CO2 emissions reduction in transports renders necessary the development of new electric traction technologies. This results in new technical constraints for equipment manufacturers, forcing them to reduce the acoustic emissivity of their new products inside and outside vehicles. Heat exchangers for electric cars are part of this new product category. High voltage supplied by the battery of electrical vehicles requires introduction of a new energy conversion process and technology. To this end, components based on ceramics containing barium titanate (BaTiO3) with high electrocaloric coupling properties are selected to provide the heating function. Baryum titanate is ferroelectric. This category of materials is subjected to piezoelectric and electrostrictive effects. The vibrations induced in the components (rods) containing the BaTiO3 ceramics are transmitted through the system, and cause undesired acoustic radiation. This coupling is a suffered effect and is not taken into account in the integration process during the rods manufacturing. In this study, an experimental characterization is proposed to identify the involved electromechanical coupling coefficients. Numerical simulations of the vibrations induced by BaTiO3 are carried out and used to study the possibility of attenuating them by controlling the polarisation of the ceramics or by geometric modifications.