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Electric car drive

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higdig

Electrical
Jul 19, 2008
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Good day,

We wish to get into electric car drives. Actually, we want to have a brushless DC machine for each of the car wheels.
(so that's 4 DC machines per car)

We know this is a knew way of doing it, that no-one's ever tried before, and so it'll be risky. -but it will make for smaller size since the motors are in the wheels.

We'll use a battery for power.

We will have coils around the stator of each wheel and simply switch current in and out of them as the wheel turns. We will have to sense the rotary position of the wheel so that we know when to switch current through which coil.
We will also need to know the actual and demanded rotary speed of the wheel so that we know whether to pulse the coils with a greater or lesser duty cycle.

We will also have to sense coil current so that we don't run the iron into saturation and so that we don't melt the coils.

Also, we'll switch current into each of the coils using a four transistor H-bridge...the reason for this being that it will allow "regen"...where during braking the wheel acts like a generator and puts power back into the battery.

We know that we need four quadrant operation since we want to be able to go... 1. forwards,... 2. backwards, and be able to do... regen going both.... 3. forwards, -and.... 4. backwards...making for 4 quadrant operation.

...It all sounds deceptively simple.

We believe that just to check that our theory works.....we should start with just a little model car, with very small wheels, probably just 4 inch diameter wheels to start with.

We will need to control the coil currents well because what if one wheel hits a skid patch?....or when the car turns a corner and the inner wheels are supposed to go slower than the outer but with the same torque?


If we get this small model working, -will it be straightforward to scale up to the full car size?

....people tell me that with higher power power-systems, all sorts of transient electrical effects come into play and things start going wrong badly and unpredictably.

Is this true?

Also, what kind of power would we need for the four motors for an electric car that could up to do say 80 miles per hour? (one motor for each of the four wheels)
 
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"We know this is a knew way of doing it, that no-one's ever tried before"

No. It is not at all new. And there are several govermental and commercial projects under way. Plus some actual cars. Google to find out about a few dozens of projects.

The one-motor-per-wheel structure has proven less suitable. Even the motor structure is not new - BLDC is one name for such a motor. And there are several others.



Gunnar Englund
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
 
Mr Ferdinand Porsche, of the German performance auto maker fame, already did his calculations, and built an electric motor car in 1900.

" . . . the Lohner-Porsche features a chassis and body made of wood and one internal-pole motor on each of the front-wheel hubs."


11inyxd.jpg
 
Use four of the standard bicycle hub motors.

But first you should read about "unsprung weight in automobiles". Any weight on a vehicle's wheels is 'unsprung'. Unsprung is bad. Adding heavy motors there is generally not good. This is why Corvettes had the brake disk rotors brought inboard so they could be 'sprung'.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
This really is not a new idea. It's been tried before. The motor you're talking about is often called a brushless DC or brushless synchronous motor. Overall, I consider the motor per wheel idea overly complicated. It could be nice in theory but it just doesn't work so well in reality.

Figure out all your drag losses to figure out how much power is needed to go 80mph. Figure out the power to climb a certain angle of hill or the power to get a set level of acceleration too while you're at it.

This is why Corvettes had the brake disk rotors brought inboard so they could be 'sprung'.

Actually, that was Jaguar.

 
Inboard brakes was never done on a 'Vette from the factory Keith. The Jag IRS is really popular for roadsters.

Doesn't mean it wasn't some type of hybrid or after market kit based on a 'Vette IRS but it seems to me that the Jag IRS is the most commonly copied setup. Don't ask me which Jag though. I somewhat expect the C5/C6 Vette suspension to become more popular in the future though - all aluminum double A-arm all around.

 
Good Day,

LionelHutz thankyou for the correct term of these motors.

We are working on the principle that with a multi-poled stator and rotor, the "next stator pole along" should have its coil pulse to make it attract the rotor coil, and the stator pole that's just passed should at that point have its coil pulsed with current in such a direction as to repel the rotor pole.
-But we don't want to suddenly switch from north to south poles...we want to do it sinusoidally....sinusoidally bringing the "next stator coil" to attractivity so it runs smooth.....so we will vary our pulse length and do so sinusoidally.

So we see the use of the 4 IGBT bridge ...it allows switching of the current direction to give north or south pole and attract or repel the rotor pole as required.

We will seek some hardened ferrite for the wheel as iron would have too much eddy current loss at the high switching frequency. -Train track 'wipers' are hard enough ferrite.

In order to re-generate, we must ensure that the stator coils experience a changing magnetic field....so therefore the rotor must have some magnetic field generating capability...either by permanent magnets or by electro type.

"Overall, I consider the motor per wheel idea overly complicated"

....but we believe we can make this work well.
 
..also, regarding the above critique of having the motors in the wheels...it is a problem with unsprung mass...but still is the only viable way to do an electric car for the mass market. Obviously its not a candidate for driving over very rocky paths.

having the motors in the wheels frees up room elsewhere and cuts down weight...important as a battery will run out quick with a heavy car.

If you dont have the motors in the wheels, then you end up with a differential driving the wheel shaft from an electric motor.....and if the motor is mounted low enough to get the differential mounting/connection right, then you havnt got enough room to put the circuitry etc around the rotor.....and if you raise it...you need two differentials.

Thats why putting a motor in each wheel is the way to go with electric cars.

 
I have been involved in several discussions on electric car drives - and is about to engage in yet one. Wheel motors were sometimes considered about fifteen - twenty years ago. But is a no-no these days.Using special induction motors does away with the need for a differential except for the most demanding cases, like F1.

Gunnar Englund
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
 
The slip/torque characteristics of most motors allow 2 or 4 motors without differentials. The outside wheel will run a little faster and draw a little less current when rounding a curve. WARNING: Don't try this with syncronous motors.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
 
You didn't mention regenerating and charging the batteries when braking. This is where most of the advantage of electric power is. Can't think of that two wheel IT thing you stand on. That is certainly a two wheel electric drive. Certainly any drive will take the full power of a PC to run. Look up DC TRANSFORMERS, lots of patents for these in the automotive field. A nice dream, but your lack of research doesn't give me confidence that it will come to fruition.
 
All,
Did some of you have a chance to see a WABCO haulpak once (mining hauling workhorse)? You'd be amazed that the drive is a motor on each rear wheel! The diesel engine-generator provides electric power with electronics control for speed, braking etc.
The technology is way back in the '80s!
 
That is all well if you don't want much more than 20 - 30 mph. It won't do at higher speeds.

Gunnar Englund
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
 
OperaHouse

I think you are refering to the "Segway" critter.

For "state of the art" in electric cars one might want to google Tesla and ignore all the fine contributions that the engineer/scientist made....

Me, I'm thinking of a minibike frame, an old generator from a 1956 Ford, chain drive and one halfway good battery charger. The trick is to motor down to the local Starbuck's for a coffee, then plug it in and recharge (and steal the power from the coffee place). Oh, forgot to mention, a good long extension cord........

Cheers,

Rich S.
 
Thanks to ivymike (Mechanical) for this link to state of the art electric drives in thread1088-219752.


The D7E is in the 60,000-pound (27 000-kilogram) weight range and is powered by a Cat® C9 engine producing 235 horsepower (175 kilowatts). Compared to the Caterpillar® D7R Series II, the D7E will deliver 25 percent more material moved per gallon of fuel, 10 percent greater productivity and 10 percent lower lifetime operating costs.

Diesel-electric without significant storage is not technically a hybrid scheme, though, is it?
Itsmoked suggested adding batteries to an electric drive diesel truck.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
 
Richs Thankyou for your link to the Tesla car.

From the Tesla website, i notice that they "appear" to have mounted the electric motor around the rear wheel axle.

Tesla dont give details of the type of motor/drive, but i suspect some kind of Brushless DC motor.

The Tesla looks excellent and all the best to them.

Of course I would opt for having a motor on each wheel as it's space saving and lighter. Also, spreading the power out amongst the 4 wheels cuts down the power density.

-Though with the 4 wheel-motors, we need to conform to waross's comments and not think about doing it with synchronous motors......getting each of the 4 wheels to give exactly the same torque at the same time would be terrible.

So we will use induction motors, such that there can be a "slip" and such that the rotating field in each of the wheels don't have to be entirely synchronous with each other.

I have often looked at the sparks seen under subway trains at night and realised that these are caused due to the fact that the drives in the bogeys are not absolutely synchronized and some bogeys are driving their wheel set harder than others, causing spin and sparks.

But thank goodness for the Tesla, as it looks the best of the current electric car range....and we all need efficient electric cars very badly.
 
higdig, are you making fun of us?

" the sparks seen under subway trains at night and realised that these are caused due to the fact that the drives in the bogeys are not absolutely synchronized "

You are as far from truth as can be here.

Gunnar Englund
--------------------------------------
100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
 
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