Decibels Lab

Building a formula racecar is totally different from a normal road car. Things such as Cells, their Chemistry, their characteristics, ability to get high current regen, thermal stability, degradation, motor peak operating points, efficiency, energy consumption for endurance, selection to suit pro & rookie driver driving patterns, and many more.  On top of it! Powertrain needs to be built within shoestring budgets. You or the team can take decisions rightly by performing and studying the powertrain sizing through the simulations which are taught in this course.  

During week 1, 2 & 3 participants will build the Formula Electric Racecar powertrain with track data in Matlab & Simulink software and analytics to define the

1. Motor peak & continues torque & current demands
2. Motor RPM
3. Motor power rating
4. Motor efficiency & operating points analysis
5. Battery & Cell discharge rating (C-rating)
6. Energy consumption analysis (Wh/km)
7. Range estimation
8. Ns & Np configuration for a pack
9. Battery pack sizing (Kw) based on different drivers
10. Influence of motor efficiency on energy consumption
11. Influence of motor regeneration energy on battery sizing
12. Cell selection for racing applications
13. Motor selection for racing applications
14. Optimisation of powertrain
15. Suggestions for advance studies for racing needs

Li-ion cells are ideal for mobility applications because of their gravimetric & volumetric energy density, higher cycle life, lower self-discharge characteristic & more. On the contrary Li-ion cells are sensitive to temperature, discharge & charge currents & storage SOC. Because of the influences, cell exhibits non-liner behaviour over it’s working life. If we would like to study the cell & understand it’s behavior, we can perform physical cell testing with lab equipment. But, physical testing will involve a huge amount of time & expensive test equipment. 

Utilising the approach of Model Based Design (MBD), we can create the cell in software like MATLAB & Simulink, with the approach such as Equivalent Circuit Model. Such models can be subjected to numerous test cases to study the characteristics. And on top of the Cell model, we will build the BMS logics to protect the cell, to identify the charging and discharging status, SOC estimations, temperature predictions & more.

Course/internship program on Li-ion Cell & BMS Algorithm MBD provides you with the hands-on project-based learning opportunity to build & analyze the cell for various test cases, help you make the logical reasonings & create a model, which you can convert to C code to dump in BMS controller. 

During week 4, 5 & 6 participants will be taught on Li-ion Cell chemistry, Modelling of Li-ion cells and Modelling of Battery management system. Learning will follow the 

1. Understanding cell chemistries of Li-ion
2. Cell parameters 
3. Cell characteristics 
4. Modelling approaches 
   1. Thevenin Electrical Model
   2. Rint Electrical Model 
5. Modelling BMS for
   1. Over & Under Voltage protection logic
   2. Over & Under Current protection logic
   3. Over & Under Temperature protection
6. Charge & discharging circuit setup 
7. Study the behaviour of the cell wrt 
   1. Discharge current 
   2. Temperature 
8. Analyse the discharge & protection circuits wrt the different dynamic current profiles
9. Estimation of SOC using Coulomb counting approach