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Thermal management optimization of a heat-pump-based HVAC system for

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DOI: 10.1109/EVER.2018.8362408

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 2018 Thirteenth International Conference on Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies (EVER)
Thermal Management Optimization of a
Heat-Pump-Based HVAC System for Cabin
Conditioning in Electric Vehicles
Giovanni De Nunzio∗ , Antonio Sciarretta†
IFP Energies nouvelles
1 et 4 avenue de Bois-Préau
92852 Rueil-Malmaison, France
Email: ∗ giovanni.de-nunzio@ifpen.fr
† antonio.sciarretta@ifpen.fr
Abstract—One of the biggest barriers towards large
scale adoption of electric and plug-in hybrid cars is still
range limitation due to limited storage capacity of elec-
tric batteries. The air conditioning system for passenger
comfort and the thermal conditioning system (battery and
powertrain) are critical auxiliary consumers in electric
vehicles with respect to energy consumption. Therefore,
the Horizon 2020 project “OPTEMUS” proposes to tackle
this bottleneck by leveraging heat pump technology and
a holistic thermal system optimization approach. This
paper presents the optimization strategy used for energy-
efficient cabin conditioning in cold weather condition and
simulation results of the air conditioning system including
a heat pump. This system is capable of using the ambient
air or a preconditioned battery as heat source, thus
significantly reducing overall energy consumption.
Index Terms—electric vehicles, passenger comfort, ther-
mal conditioning, heat pump system, optimization
I. I NTRODUCTION
Driving range anxiety is one the main deterrent factors
for diffusion of electric vehicles and transportation elec-
trification [1]. Increasing battery size and capacity does
not represent a sustainable option due to manufacturing
costs and environmental impact. Comfort and cabin
conditioning, especially in low ambient temperature con-
ditions, require considerable amounts of power, which
for electric vehicles could translate into a driving range
reduction of up to 50% [2], [3]. This is mainly due
to the fact that in cold weather hardly any waste heat
is available for reuse and cabin conditioning. Thus, all
the heat has to be provided by the conventional positive
temperature coefficient (PTC) heater, which is one of the
major energy consumers in the vehicle.
In the past few years, interest into more performing
and efficient system architectures for vehicles cabin
Alois Steiner‡ , Alexander Mladek§
Virtual Vehicle Research Center
Inffeldgasse 21a
A-8010 Graz, Austria
Email: ‡ alois.steiner@v2c2.at
§ alexander.mladek@v2c2.at
comfort has grown steadily. Heat pump technology has
proven to offer much higher efficiency and perfor-
mance as compared to conventional conditioning sys-
tems, showing a promising energy consumption reduc-
tion for cabin comfort of up to 60% [4], [5], [6].
This translates into significant driving range extension,
especially for electric vehicles.
Therefore, research efforts have been focused on per-
formance evaluation of different system configurations
making use of heat pump technology in order to narrow
down the feasible solutions prior to hardware develop-
ment and demonstrators assembly, as well as lay the
foundations for development of control strategies [7], [8].
Recent works have dealt with the dynamic control
of heat pump systems in order to reduce energy con-
sumption for comfort in electric vehicles. The typical ap-
proach is to achieve a desired cabin vent temperature or
heating power by controlling the heat-pump compressor
speed and/or the positive temperature coefficient (PTC)
heaters. In [9] and [10], the proposed thermal manage-
ment strategy acts on a combination of PTC and heat
pump technology in order to mitigate the driving range
reduction at different ambient temperature conditions. In
[11], the benefits of using heat pump technology over the
conventional PTC heating are shown, with also an insight
into the possibility of further reducing energy consump-
tion thanks to battery conditioning. In [12], the authors
assess the impact of using a pre-conditioned battery as
a heat source for the heat pump instead of the ambient
air in cold weather. The analysis shows that the energy
consumption can be reduced by up to 50% while keeping
the same target cabin vent temperature. The objective
of this work is to optimize the thermal management
for cabin conditioning of an electric vehicle where heat
 Fig. 1. Simulation model of the heat pump and the connected coolant circuits, using the ambient air as heat source.
pump technology is used. Thermal management of a
heat-pump-based system typically makes use of several
actuators, such as heat-pump compressor, coolant circu-
lation pumps, cabin and ambient-heat-exchanger (AHX)
fans in order to achieve a desired cabin temperature
and/or cabin vent temperature. The contribution of this
paper to the existing literature resides in a dynamic
optimization of the whole set of actuators, instead of
solely controlling the compressor speed, for achieving
a desired cabin comfort level. The analysis will address
cold weather conditions using both the ambient air and
a pre-conditioned battery as heat sources for the heat
pump. The performance improvement will be assessed in
simulation in comparison with a vehicle equipped with
heat pump technology where only the compressor speed
is controlled.
The paper is organized as follows: the modeling ap-
proach and the adopted simplifications for optimization
purposes are described in Section II, the optimization
problems are formulated in Section III, the simulation
results are discussed in Section IV.
II. M ODELING A PPROACH
In this work, two use cases for heat pump operation
are analyzed: ambient air as heat source, and pre-
conditioned battery as heat source. In both scenarios, the
vehicle follows an NEDC driving cycle, at an ambient
air temperature of -10 ◦ C.
The system model was developed in the software
Dymola by means of the “AirConditioning Library”
(Version 1.9). Figure 1 shows the simulation model of
the first use case, where the “cold coolant circuit” of
the heat pump is connected with the AHX and the
“warm coolant circuit” with the cabin. The heat pump
model itself consists of a compressor, two plate heat
exchangers (refrigerant-coolant) and an expansion valve.
Known geometries of heat exchangers for an A-segment
vehicle and the performance curves of pumps were used
for the characterization of the component models. A 50%
glycol/water mixture was assumed in the coolant circuits.
Also the simple cabin model was characterized with
known values for an A-segment vehicle. For the second
use case, the model of the ambient heat exchanger was
replaced by a (thermal) battery model, which represents
the thermal mass of the battery, as well as the coolant
side pressure drop. A battery weight of 175 kg with an
average heat capacity of 0.7 kJ/kgK was assumed. In
order to improve the thermal stability of the battery and
to enhance its thermal capacity, the battery model was
enriched by considering also a phase-change-material
(PCM) inside the modules.
A. Simplified Model
For the optimization problem design, the comprehen-
sive thermal system model in Dymola was simplified
and redefined as an artificial neural network (ANN).
In the following, the PCM inside the battery will be
assumed to be ideal, therefore the battery temperature
will be considered constant as long as the PCM is in
phase change (melting or solidifying). For each of the
two considered use cases, an ANN was trained and
verified over a set of steady-state simulations conducted
in Dymola, at constant boundary conditions of ambient
air temperature of -10 ◦ C and battery temperature of
25 ◦ C. The steady-state simulations in Dymola for the
ANN design and training were run varying the inputs
within a pre-specified range, as detailed in Table I.
In both cases the ANNs were trained by means of
a Bayesian regularization back-propagation algorithm,
and by using 90% of the Dymola simulations as the
training set, while the remaining simulations were used with Pp,b the power consumption of the pump enabling
for validation and testing. the flow in the battery-side coolant circuit, Q̇b the heating
The ANN fa associated with the case with ambient air power extracted from the battery.
as heat source was designed as a 4-hidden-layers network
with a total of 120 neurons. The network is defined as III. O PTIMIZATION P ROBLEM
follows:
fa : Xa → Ya (1) In the first use case, the objective is to minimize the
energy consumption of the heat pump compressor, the
where the set of model inputs is: AHX and heater fans, and the pumps in the AXH and
Xa : {ωc , ṁa,AHX , ṁa,ht , ṁv,AHX , ṁv,ht } (2) heater coolant circuit. The optimization must respect a
heat flow constraint in order to reach the desired cabin
with ωc the heat pump compressor speed, ṁa,AHX the comfort. Therefore the optimization problem for the first
air flow through the AHX, ṁa,ht the air flow through the use case may be formulated as follows:
cabin heater, ṁv,AHX the volume flow in the AHX-side  Z Tf
coolant circuit, ṁv,ht the volume flow in the heater-side 
coolant circuit.


 min (Pc + Pf,AHX + Pf,ht +
 u∈Xa
 0
The set of model outputs is:

P1 : +Pp,AHX + Pp,ht ) dt (7)
n o 
Ya : Pc , Pf,AHX , Pf,ht , Pp,AHX , Pp,ht , Tht , Q̇ht (3)


 s.t. Ya = f (Xa )

∗

 Q̇ = ṁ
ht a,ht· c · (T − T )
a ht amb
with Pc the power consumption of the heat pump com-
pressor, Pf,AHX the power consumption of the AHX where ca is the air specific heat capacity, Tamb = −10 ◦ C
fan, Pf,ht the power consumption of the heater fan, is the ambient air temperature, Q̇∗ht is a desired heater
Pp,AHX the power consumption of the pump enabling heat flow.
the flow in the AHX-side coolant circuit, Pp,ht the power
Note that the optimization problem (7) is independent
consumption of the pump enabling the flow in the heater-
of the driving cycle, meaning that the objective func-
side coolant circuit, Tht the cabin vent temperature at the
tion can be minimized while respecting the heat flow
heater outlet, Q̇ht the heater heat flow.
constraint independently of the required traction power.
Analogously, the ANN fb associated with the case
In fact, the problem is a static optimization and can be
with battery as heat source was designed as a 3-hidden-
solved by using a standard interior-point algorithm.
layers network with a total of 90 neurons. The network
On the other hand, the second use case presents a more
is defined as follows:
complex formulation due to the additional dynamics of
fb : Xb → Yb (4) the battery heat flow. The heat dynamics inside the PCM
is introduced as an additional optimization constraint,
where the set of model inputs is: and is defined as the difference between the heat injected
Xb : {ωc , ṁa,ht , ṁv,ht , ṁv,b } (5) into the PCM due to the thermal losses induced by the
traction power and the heat extracted for comfort and
with ṁv,b the volume flow in the battery-side coolant heat pump operation. Evidently, such an optimization
circuit. problem is dependent on the driving cycle and on the
The model outputs are: specific battery thermal losses. The problem can be
solved by means of known techniques, such as numerical
n o
Yb : Pc , Pf,ht , Pp,ht , Pp,b , Tht , Q̇ht , Q̇b (6)
methods based on the Pontryagin Minimum Principle
(PMP). Thus, the optimization problem for the second
use case may be formulated as follows:
TABLE I
ANN T RAINING I NPUTS VARIATION R ANGE  Z Tf


 min (Pc + Pf,ht + Pp,ht + Pp,b ) dt
ANN fa ANN fb u∈Xb

0



s.t. Yb = f (Xb )

ωc [3000, 6000] RPM ωc [900, 2500] RPM 



ṁa,AHX [1000, 3000] kg/h ṁa,ht [200, 400] kg/h P2 : Q̇P CM = Pb,loss (t) − Q̇b (8)
ṁa,ht [200, 400] kg/h ṁv,ht [0.8, 1] % ∗

Q̇ht = ṁa,ht · ca · (Tht − Tamb )




ṁv,AHX [0.8, 1] % ṁv,b [0.8, 1] % 
QP CM = [QP CM,min , QP CM,max ]



ṁv,ht [0.8, 1] %


QP CM (0) = QP CM,max

 5000
Heater Heat Flow [W]
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
0 200 400 600 800
Time [s]
Fig. 2. Heater heat flow constraint.
where QP CM is the heating energy stored in the PCM
between a minimum and a maximum level, and the
thermal losses induced by the traction power are:
1 − ηbatt
Pb,loss (t) = Pbatt (t)
ηbatt
with ηbatt the battery efficiency, and Pbatt the power
consumption at the battery during the driving cycle. The
battery power consumption can be either measured or
estimated by means of a standard longitudinal dynamical
model of the vehicle.
As already mentioned, Q̇∗ht is the desired heater heat
flow to achieve a goal comfort level. Typically, this time-
varying value can be calculated by an inner control
loop dedicated to operate the heat pump compressor
in order to reach a target cabin vent temperature. The
optimization proposed in this work may be thought
of as an outer control loop, which selects the optimal
operation of the different actuators in order to track
the desired heater heat flow. In the following, for the
sake of comparison, the heat flow profile in [12] will
be used as an optimization constraint for both problems
(7) and (8). However, the ANNs defined in (1) and (4)
were designed using a training set generated by steady-
state simulations. Therefore, the reference heater heat
flow profile in [12], which is generated by a dynamic
simulation, cannot be used directly as a constraint. In
order to make the constraint compatible with the steady-
state models used in the optimization problems P1 and
P2 , the heat flow constraint Q̇∗ht was recalculated by
feeding the dynamic inputs in [12] to the ANNs in (1)
and (4). The resulting steady-state heat flow constraint
Q̇∗ht is shown in Figure 2.
IV. R ESULTS
The objective of the simulation campaign is to assess
the optimization performance gain in terms of energy
consumption over a non-optimized case to achieve the
Fig. 3. Schematic of the simulation campaign. The reference and
optimal outputs, Yref and Yopt respectively, will be compared for
energy performance assessment.
1000 1200
same cabin comfort. As already mentioned, the refer-
ence inputs and outputs are obtained from a previous
study [12]. The idea of the simulation campaign can be
illustrated as in Figure 3.
In both simulation scenarios the vehicle follows an
NEDC driving cycle, at an ambient air temperature of
-10 ◦ C. The ideal PCM is supposed to keep the battery
at a constant temperature of 25 ◦ C. When the ambient
(9)
air is used as a heat source for the heat pump, the PCM
does not lose thermal energy. On the other hand, when
the battery is the heat source, the thermal energy in the
PCM is depleted according to its dynamics, as in (8).
In Figure 4, the time-varying inputs solving the opti-
mization problem in (7) are shown. Most of the control
effort is exerted by the heat-pump compressor in order
to respect the heater heat flow constraint. However, the
optimization makes use of the other control inputs as
well in order to reduce the overall energy consump-
tion. The energy consumption of the optimized case is
1297 Wh, whereas the non-optimized case presented in
[12] showed an overall energy consumption of 1461 Wh.
Therefore, the optimization improves performance by
11%, while maintaining the same cabin comfort level. In
fact, the average cabin temperature of the optimized case
reaches an even higher value at the end of the driving
cycle, as shown in the comparison in Figure 6.
The optimization inputs of problem (8) are shown in
Figure 5. In this case, the overall energy consumption
for thermal comfort is 702 Wh. It is evident how using a
warmer heat source for cabin comfort instead of ambient
air in extremely cold weather can reduce consumption
by about 50%. The reference case, in which only the
heat pump compressor was actuated by a controller,
shows an energy consumption of 751 Wh. Therefore, the
optimization improves performance by about 7%. The
average cabin temperature for both the reference and
optimized case is shown in Figure 7.
A summary of the overall energy consumption per-
formance for the optimized case with respect to the
reference in the two simulated scenarios is hown in
Figure 8. The breakdown of the relative consumption
 300 AIR - optimized 110 110
AIR - reference 8500
2200
290
8000 105 105
2000 280

Volume flow heater pump [%]

Volume flow AHX pump [%]
7500 100 100

Compressor speed [rpm]

270

Air flow heater [kg/h]

Air flow AHX [kg/h]

1800 7000
95 95
260
6500
1600
250 6000 90 90

1400 240 5500 85 85

230 5000
1200 80 80
220 4500
1000 75 75
210 4000

800 200 3500 70 70

0 500 1000 0 500 1000 0 500 1000 0 500 1000 0 500 1000
Time [s] Time [s] Time [s] Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 4. Comparison of the reference and optimized input profiles for the case with ambient air as a heat source.

300 3500 110 BATTERY - optimized 110

BATTERY - reference
290
105 105
280 3000 Volume flow battery pump [%]

Volume flow heater pump [%]

100 100
Compressor speed [rpm]

270
Air flow heater [kg/h]

95 95
260 2500

250 90 90

240 2000
85 85
230
80 80
220 1500
75 75
210

200 1000 70 70
0 500 1000 0 500 1000 0 500 1000 0 500 1000
Time [s] Time [s] Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 5. Comparison of the reference and optimized input profiles for the case with battery as a heat source.

25 25
AIR - optimized BATTERY- optimized
20 AIR - reference 20 BATTERY - reference
Cabin Temperature [°C]

Cabin Temperature [°C]

15 15

10 10

5 5

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 6. Comparison of the average cabin temperature for the reference Fig. 7. Comparison of the average cabin temperature for the reference
and optimized case when using ambient air as a heat source. and optimized case when using the battery as a heat source.
Energy Consumption [Wh] 1500 V. C ONCLUSIONS
Optimized
Reference In this paper two different heat pump operation modes
in cold weather conditions were optimized. The heat
1000
pump is capable of redirecting the heat flows in the
electric vehicle cabin using either the ambient air or
the battery as a heat source. In simulation, the cabin
500
temperature was raised from -10 ◦ C to 20 ◦ C in about
20 minutes, which corresponds to the NEDC driving
0
cycle duration. The optimization proves to be able to
AIR BATTERY reduce the energy consumption for cabin conditioning
with respect to the non-optimized case. In the first use
Fig. 8. Comparison of the overall energy consumption for reaching
a cabin temperature of 20 ◦ C for the optimized and reference case in case where the ambient air is used as a heat source the
the two use cases. energy consumption is reduced by about 11%. In the
second use case, where the battery equipped with PCM is
AIR used as a heat source, the energy consumption is reduced
Energy Consumption [Wh]

20
by about 7%.
0

-20 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
-40 Heat-Pump Compressor This project has received funding from the European
-60
Heater Fan Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program
AHX Fan
-80 AXH-Side Pump under grant agreement No. 653288 - OPTEMUS.
Heater-Side Pump The simulation model of the heat pump and the
-100
Optimized vs. Reference data about the other thermal system components have
been provided by DENSO AUTOMOTIVE Deutschland
BATTERY GmbH and DENSO THERMAL SYSTEMS S.p.A..
Energy Consumption [Wh]

20

0 R EFERENCES
-20
-40
Heat-Pump Compressor
-60
Heater Fan
-80 Battery-Side Pump
Heater-Side Pump
-100
Optimized vs. Reference
Fig. 9. Relative consumption of the different actuators for the
optimized case with respect to the reference. Negative values indicate
that the optimized case consumes less than the reference one.
of the different actuators for the optimized case with
respect to the reference is shown in Figure 9. In the
optimized case with ambient air as a heat source, the
AHX and heater fans are actuated at a much lower speed,
which translates into a lower energy consumption of both
components. When the ambient air is a cold heat source,
it is better to blow a smaller amount of air into the
cabin to reach a target comfort. The heater-side pump
consumes more than in the reference case, but this allows
the heat-pump compressor and the AHX-side pump to
consume less. Analogously, in the optimized case with
the battery as a heat source, the heater-side pump is
allowed to consume more than in the reference case, in
order to reduce the heat-pump compressor consumption
and achieve the overall performance gain.
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