Abstract :
[en] To reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, there is nowadays a strong focus on the electrification of transportation, especially personal vehicles. One of the main limitations of this trend is the limited range of Electrical Vehicles (EVs) due to the rather low energy density of batteries compared to liquid fossil fuels. Adding a range extender allows for a significant increase of the vehicle driving range. Typical range extenders are Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) based. Although micro Gas Turbines (mGTs) are not adequate for continuous change of load, as would be the case when used as direct power source, operating them as range extender offers large potential, especially given their higher power-to-weight ratio than ICEs, but also due to their lower emissions, vibration levels and maintenance requirements. The main drawback of the mGT compared to the ICE is its lower electrical efficiency. Humidification of the mGT cycle allows boosting its performance and by doing so making it more compatible.
In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of applying a (humidified) mGT as a range extender in EVs. In this investigation, we considered a small vehicle for use in urban area. The option of using an mGT as range extender (standard and humidified) is compared to the standard ICE based range extender. Aspen plus is used to assess the engines performance, showing that the humidified mGT has the highest potential in terms of fuel consumption reduction and range extension. Moreover, the humidified mGT presents similar performance compared to an ICE, leading to the same specific energy consumption. In addition, different pathways to compensate for the water consumption (exhaust gas condensation) are studied and discussed, revealing that the vehicle does not need external input of water.
