E-drive test bench

• Subject Area: Mechanics and Constructive Mechanical Engineering
• Term: Funded in 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 537832149

The advancing transformation of the automotive industry towards electric drives has inevitably also affected university research. Thus, the former Chair of Internal Combustion Engines was renamed the Institute of Sustainable Mobile Powertrains (NMA) as of October 1, 2021, in the course of filling the position of the retired full professor Georg Wachtmeister. This is accompanied by a realignment of the research focus of the chair, so that in addition to combustion engines with sustainable fuels, the areas of hydrogen fuel cells and electric drives are now also covered. In the area of electric drives, the new chair focuses on research into electric motors and aspects of the electric drive system. In cooperation with the chairs of Vehicle Technology (FTM), Electrical Energy Storage Technology (EES), Machine Elements (FZG) and High Performance Converter Systems (HLU), the research field of sustainable mobility can be explored in breadth and depth. In its 87-year history, the chair in Munich's Schragenhofstrasse has always had its strength in the combination of simulative and experimental research. With its own test bench building, 13 test cells and a prototype workshop, the equipment is correspondingly strongly oriented towards the operation of drive test benches. As part of the strategic reorientation toward sustainable drive systems, the existing combustion engine test rigs are now to be successively replaced by test rigs for electric drives. The e-drive test bench applied for is of particular importance for this transformation. It represents the test environment within which electric drives in various configurations can be researched and measured. The specifications of the test bench were defined on the basis of the criteria of performance, functionality and cost-effectiveness. Technically, this is reflected by the requirements for DC voltage (up to 1,200 V), minimum power (400 kW), minimum torque (500 Nm) and minimum speed (20,000 rpm). For the research projects planned at NMA in the fields of electric drive systems, HV system simulation, axial flux machines and fuel cell systems, the proposed e-drive test bench represents an essential tool, without which research in many areas would have to remain limited to purely theoretical - and thus unevaluated - considerations and the ongoing transformation of the chair towards the sustainable mobility of the future could not be completed.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: E-Antriebsprüfstand
• Instrumentation Group: 2600 Elektromotoren
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität München (TUM)
• Leader: Professor Malte Jaensch, Ph.D.