Hybridisation of a multifunctional vehicle “Investigation on the integration of a hybrid powertrain into a multifunctional vehicle, including forward-looking production processes”
Authors:   , Schuhmann Dirk 
Published: February 2024

The demand for environmentally friendly, resource-saving and efficient technical solutions and concepts will continue to increase in the future. Environmental protection and the threat of climate change are the drivers for new and more environmentally friendly developments. On the one hand, the mobility sector is in a state of transformation. New developments are constantly being made with regard to electric mobility. Many European countries are introducing inner-city driving bans for locally emission generating vehicles. Therefore, the trend is at least towards locally emission-free driving. In the media and in the minds of the population, the car industry plays the most important role. However, light commercial vehicles, which belong to the category of non-road mobile machinery, are just as important. These also include multifunctional vehicles. These types of vehicles are often used in inner-city areas due to their narrow track and manoeuvrability. These types of vehicles have efficiency deficits and require modern and efficient drive platforms. On the other hand, new manufacturing processes such as additive manufacturing are improving. With these manufacturing processes, material can be saved by means of offcuts and design through sophisticated development. The great freedom of design in additive manufacturing also allows components to save resources and energy during operation by increasing power density and improving efficiency. As a result, more environmentally friendly components can be developed over the entire product life cycle, especially through 3D metal printing. A combination of new drive concepts and forward-looking manufacturing processes such as additive manufacturing offer great potential for an efficient and more environmentally friendly mobility of tomorrow. In this thesis, the transformation of a conventional powertrain into a partially or fully electrified powertrain is demonstrated by means of a multifunctional vehicle. The hybridisation of a multifunctional vehicle is demonstrated in concrete terms. The powertrain is transformed from a conventional vehicle powered by a pure combustion engine to a scalable and modular electrified drive platform in the field of non-road mobile machinery. Important aspects here are the protection of resources and the energy efficiency of the drive platform. A declared goal is local emission-free driving. In order to be able to make a concrete statement about the load requirements of the multifunctional vehicle, special load spectra are being developed. The load spectra will be expanded and presented as a basis for newly developed application-adapted driving cycles. In the transformation to an electrified drive platform, future-oriented and resource-saving manufacturing processes such as additive manufacturing in the form of 3D metal printing are analysed by based on a literature review and the advantages and emerging potentials of additive manufacturing are shown. In addition, this research work presents a new and holistic evaluation procedure for determining the most suitable manufacturing process. Using a systematic and holistic evaluation matrix, the drive platform is analysed along the product life cycle and components suitable for additive manufacturing are identified. The elaborated theoretical properties are verified by a practical test setup and the production of additive components. This research work shows the path of electrification of a multifunctional vehicle by means of specially developed driving cycles along the product life cycle with the potential of future- oriented manufacturing processes for electromobility.