Highly Efficient All-wheel Drive for Cars of Tomorrow

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Today’s All-wheel Drives (AWDs) cause additional fuel consumption compared to single-axle passenger cars, which puts a burden on the CO2 fleet balance. This consumption disadvantage can be significantly reduced by temporarily switching off AWD components that are not required, although this involves a certain amount of additional design work [1]. The development of highly efficient CO2-reducing future technologies is being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) [2]. For this reason, the aim of the here presented and also BMWi funded project AWD2020 [3] was the realization of a highly efficient allwheel drivetrain for the compact SUV vehicle class with a transversely mounted combustion engine, which is cost-neutral in comparison to systems that are commonly used today. In order to be able to demonstrate further optimization potential in the future, it should also be possible to add a 48-V hybrid module to the powertrain. In this case, a vehicle equipped with such a module offers the user additional functions such as electric boosting, electric crawling, parking, electrically assisted sailing and thus further reduction of energy consumption. The benchg

Highly Title_xEfficient All-wheel Drive for Cars of Tomorrow

Compared to single-axle-driven vehicles, all-wheel-drive vehicles offer better traction and greater driving safety. This applies in particular to on-demand all-wheel drive tech­nology, which was previously reserved for premium models and is now increasingly being used in lower-priced passenger cars. GKN and RWTH Aachen University have developed an all-wheel drive for significant CO2 savings as well as a 48-V hybrid module. The usual extra fuel consumption of an AWD system is reduced to one third with the highly efficient all-wheel drive components.

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AUTHORS

Dipl.-Ing. Sven Herber is Program Manager Advanced Engineering ePowertrain at GKN Driveline International GmbH in Lohmar (Germany).

Dipl.-Ing. Theo Gassmann is Director Advanced Engineering at GKN Driveline Inter­ national GmbH in Lohmar (Germany).

Dipl.-Ing. Jan Haupt is Manager Advanced Engineering ePowertrain at GKN Driveline International GmbH in Lohmar (Germany).

Dipl.-Ing. Christoph Chatenay is Program Manager Advanced Driveline Concepts at GKN Driveline International GmbH in Lohmar (Germany).

mark for this project was a modern allwheel drivetrain of the latest generation with a corresponding insta­llation space. The two project partners GKN and the Institute of Electrical Machines (IEM) of the RWTH Aachen University developed the hardware and software com­ ponents presented in this article, which were finally integrated into the all-wheel drivetrain shown in the title figure.

DESIGN OF THE DRIVETRAIN

As a classic “on-demand” AWD, the highly efficient powertrain has a Power Transfer Unit (PTU) on the front axle driven primarily by the combustion engine, a longitudinal shaft (propshaft) and a Rear Drive Unit (RDU) with a laterally arranged multi-disc clutch, thro