Scale Reduction for Rapid Prototyping of Wireless Power Transfer System for Electrical vehicules

In this paper, the scale reduction method is applied to a 3D model of a wireless inductive charging system for electric vehicles for its rapid prototyping and simulation. The co-simulation between a 3D FEM model of the wireless power transfer system (WPT) and the power electronic part is studied and in particular thanks to the scale reduction method. A preliminary comparison between the measurement and the FEM model of the coupling coefficient on the one hand and the computation time on the other hand highlights the high potential of the scale reduction method for prototyping and simulation of a realistic WPT system.

I. Introduction

The massive development of electric vehicles (EVs) is a major ecological imperative to replace conventional vehicles that use combustion engines. Such vehicles use electric bat-teries instead of fossil fuel on board to store the electrical energy needed to propel the vehicle. Large capacity, high power battery packs are generally required for EVs to operate over reasonable distances. However, it is not easy to realize reliable and competitive batteries for EVs in the 1 kW to 10 kW range due to the requirements of cost, safety level, power densities, long cycle life, volume and weight, which should all be satisfied simultaneously. Currently marketed lithium-ion batteries for EVs are recognized as the most competitive solution, but the power densities of lithium-ion batteries are less than 100 Wh/kg [1], [2]. On the other hand, gasoline has an energy density of about 12,000 Wh/kg [4], which implies that EVs are not sufficiently attractive compared to conventional vehicles until now.