Looking into the Volvo Penta strategy, it is clear that electromobility will play a key role in meeting the target of heavily reduced carbon dioxide emissions. To better understand customers’ needs and the current challenges when switching to electric driven applications, engineers have put themselves in the customer’s shoes.
The Volvo Penta strategy includes tough targets for Sustainability and the transformation into electromobility will play a critical role to meet this target.
For the off-road industry, there is a lot to understand and overcome when it comes to electromobility and how it will be implemented by OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). To gain a deeper understanding of the OEM’s challenges, Volvo Penta acquired a terminal tractor and proceeded to begin with the conversion to an electric driveline in 2015.
Application engineer Peter Brankell explains: “From the beginning, we knew material handling would be one of the main markets for electrification, with its known drive cycles, high machine utilization, and the fixed environment with a good power infrastructure. In a wider context, it would help us gain better insight into the challenges and opportunities in the installation process, which is paramount when designing driveline solutions for OEMs.
Application engineer Peter Brankell and the Volvo Penta electric terminal tractor
A three step re-build
The tractor was real-life tested in Sweden’s Port of Gothenburg. Initially, it was run with its existing diesel driveline while its performance was monitored to provide a baseline for future developments.
In the second step, the tractor was rebuilt in the same diesel-electric parallel hybrid configuration used in Volvo’s hybrid buses and simulations of different drive cycles were performed.
This testing eventually confirmed a 30% increase in efficiency over a typical operation cycle and heavily contributed to the very strong results in the WWF Climate Savers program which was presented earlier this year.
In the third step, the tractor was converted to fully electric using proven electromobility technology from Volvo Group, such as the batteries and a pair of electric motors connected to the gearbox. The packaging solution of the driveline to the terminal tractor design were adapted inhouse by Volvo Penta. ???????
Development engineer Kerstin Kha and Verification engineer Felix Engström by the electric terminal tractor
Heavy testing
During 440 hours spread over four months, everything from durability to driveability of the fully-electric tractor was gradually tested and enhanced. Then, another 300 hours of testing with simulation models followed on a functional test platform at Volvo Penta’s facilities in Gothenburg.
“At the beginning, it was more a case of functional implementation than fine-tuning,” clarifies Felix Engström, Verification Engineer and in charge of verification and software calibration activities, customer field tests and test object installations. “We wanted to secure software maturity and learn about system behavior. When we found problems, we could trace where they occurred using the software and see what we needed to do to make the system work as we wanted. This gave us so much valuable knowledge about how to adapt the system to an OEM’s specific needs in future.”
“Customers will see better uptime and reduced maintenance thanks to the increased reliability that our intensive testing has produced,” Peter Brankell states. “Not to mention total cost of ownership will typically be reduced in most parts of the world, with performance and ease of operation being at least equal.”
“The terminal tractor played a vital role in testing and verifying the Rosenbauer electric fire truck,” says Development Engineer Kerstin Kha who was heavily involved in the work. “Even though the tractor has a much lower gross vehicle weight, for instance, we could accurately simulate anti-slip tests and other driving behaviors of a fire-truck by making sure the correct loads were placed on the motors and inverters and optimized the speed limits of the motor to prevent current peaks. We learned how to utilize the terminal tractor as a test object for a fire truck.”
“At the beginning of the project, this approach works very well, but closer to production we adapted one of our FMX 4x4 trucks with the same driveline layout, which is as close as we can get for testing functional safety in different environments. This also helped our engineers to decide on final changes to wiring and smaller components,” says Peter Brankell.
The future is electric
Going forward, the terminal tractor will continue to play a key role as a test platform for Volvo Penta engineers to adapt their electromobility portfolio to future vehicle partnerships. The combination of components can remain generally unchanged, just leaving the inevitable software and wiring changes to meet new demands.
“Our approach going forward in the development will center around close collaboration with OEMs and operators such as material handling and special vehicle applications, such as with terminal truck manufacturer TICO and Rosenbauer. This customer-centric approach is critical for success. Several ports are already requiring material handling equipment to be emission-free by 2030, which effectively means every new machine purchase from next year onward should be emissions-free – fully-electric, HVO, etc – if they are to change their whole fleet in time. With all the know-how we have gained, and continue to gain, from testing our terminal tractor – we are eager to guide and help our customers," Peter Brankell concludes.
Article date
05/06/2021
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Volvo Penta
Hallencreutz Åse
Corporate Communication Manager