Gear shifting optimization applied to a flex-fuel vehicle under real driving conditions

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to analyze the fuel saving possibilities of optimized gear shifting strategies in a vehicle with a flex-fuel engine powered by both ethanol and gasoline when submitted to a real-world driving cycle. A computational model is implemented and, for each fuel option, an optimization problem is solved aiming at minimization of fuel consumption and traveling time. The standard and optimized gear shifting strategies obtained are experimentally evaluated where the new gear shifting shows a significant fuel consumption reduction without a significant increase in traveling time.

Keywords:

• Gear shifting strategy
• flex-fuel engine
• fuel economy
• genetic algorithms
• vehicle dynamics
• real driving cycle

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Mechanical Engineering Postgraduate Program from Federal University of Minas Gerais PPGMEC – UFMG, Federal University of Sao Joao Del-Rei – UFSJ and University of Campinas – UNICAMP for the support to this research.