Enhanced efficiencies of hybrid vehicles for improved city air quality

This project aims to establish a collaboration between two internationally leading research groups on the study of multiphase heat transfer to enhance the efficiencies of electric vehicles.

The use of electric vehicles is foreseen to expand enormously in the next few years especially in urban environments to improve air quality and as an alternative to transport by fossil fuels. An essential aspect in the operation of electric vehicles is the power electronics cooling. Power electronics constitute 40% of the total traction cost in electric vehicles. Traditional approaches, where only one fluid is used for cooling, are inefficient. Phase-change heat transfer such as boiling, which involves two phases (gas and liquid), substantially improves the heat transfer rates. 

This project aims to collaborate with two laboratories with complementary expertise to study the complex interfacial phenomena underpinning heat transfer during phase change and boiling for the cooling of power electronics in hybrid cars. This aim addresses the theme of Climate change and health in the city of the call. The labs will combine advanced numerical simulations and experiments to link microscopic nanoscale effects dictating the bubble formation and growth on surfaces during boiling to macroscopic properties such as heat transfer rates. At its core, this project will explore the effects of microfabricated structured surfaces on boiling.

Area

Chemical Engineering

UCL leads

• Professor Panagiota Angeli, Department of Chemical Engineering