Research on the influence of eTrailer on the power performance of semi-trailer

The eTrailer have been proposed to improve semi-trailers’ fuel economy which may form a distributed drive hybrid semi-trailer with a tractor. The impact of eTrailer on the power performance of semi-trailer is studied and that of centralized drive hybrid semi-trailer is compared in this article. The adhesion rate of a distributed drive hybrid semi-trailer has been derived, which can significantly reduce the adhesion rate on the driving wheels of the tractor compared to a centralized hybrid power semi-trailer, thus facilitating the performance of the vehicle’s power. Centralized drive and distributed drive hybrid power semi-trailer models were established and simulation experiments were conducted out to verify the effectiveness of distributed drive hybrid semi-trailer train. The climbing and acceleration performance of hybrid vehicles with two different layouts were studied on high and low adhesion roads. Simulation results showed that the climbing ability could be improved by 9.1% on high adhesion road surfaces and 16.7% on low adhesion road surfaces. The maximum speed does not change much, but the time to reach 80% of the maximum speed can be reduced by 20%.