MapleSim Drives Higher Fuel Efficiency in Cars

Waterloo, Canada, 14 September 2011: Maplesoft™ today announced the MapleSim™ Driveline Component Library is a collection of components for driveline modeling applications. Built with the involvement of several transmission manufacturers, this MapleSim add-on covers all stages in the powertrain, from the engine to the differential, wheels, and road loads, as well as vehicle dynamics.

With MapleSim, engineers develop high-fidelity, high performance models in a fraction of the time it would take with other tools. By using MapleSim together with the MapleSim Driveline Component Library, engineers can mix the best of physical models and empirical data to maximize model fidelity, optimize designs, and improve overall vehicle fuel efficiency.

One major advantage of this library is that the components use an acausal approach to model development, where the user can simply connect the components together in the required configuration without worrying about issues like torque direction and load flow. These issues are resolved automatically by the underlying solver. This makes it much easier, and significantly faster, to produce models of any complex transmission configuration from prebuilt components, compared to using traditional signal-flow simulation tools.
The library also provides an option that allows power losses to be readily incorporated into the model, either through external calculations or through the use of empirical look-up tables. For example, energy loss in the powertrain can occur due to tooth meshing, bearing friction, slip, and other factors. This approach allows the user to maximize the fidelity of the model while introducing losses in a manner that best reflects how the loss data was acquired during testing.

“As automotive manufacturers strive to improve fuel efficiency of their vehicles, they’ve found that the transmission is one of the major sources of power loss,” says Paul Goossens, Vice President of Application Engineering at Maplesoft. “Engineers are putting a lot of effort into assessing where power is lost, and what can be done to improve overall efficiency. MapleSim and the MapleSim Driveline Component Library greatly reduce the time and effort required for these tasks, and making it much easier for transmission manufacturers to reduce power loss through improved designs. The result will be more efficient vehicles on the roads.”

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