Scenario-based Layout Optimization for Cooling Circuits in Electric Vehicles

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are an important contribution to emission-free mobility for private transportation. The thermal management of a BEV regulates the temperatures of its components to maintain a desired performance. This work examines the impact of the cooling circuit layout on the energy efficiency of the thermal management while ensuring compliance with temperature limits of the components. To achieve the desired performance, an optimal control problem (OCP) is formulated to govern the control inputs and is further extended to jointly optimize the cooling circuit layout. This OCP is discretized using direct collocation with the implicit midpoint rule and solved by an interior point method. Simulations under different ambient conditions demonstrate improved efficiency in the usage of the control inputs while maintaining temperature constraints through the optimization of the cooling circuit layout.