Designing, prototyping, assembling and costs analysis of a gas turbine hybrid vehicle

Hybrid vehicles currently represent a compromise between the maturity of conventional vehicles and the low consumption and attention to environmental issues of electric vehicles. This article analyzes the feasibility of a hybrid series vehicle where the heat engine is replaced by a micro gas turbine. In the continuous generation of electric current, it has numerous advantages compared to an internal combustion engine and the purpose of the article is to verify whether these advantages also apply to traction in a hybrid vehicle. The model will be a city car as problems in urban environments of pollution and optimization of consumption are more revealing. After defining performance requirements, the main components are sized and then selected from the catalog, paying attention in the search for a compromise between performance, space constraints, and costs. The Advisor software will then be used to simulate the configuration in both urban and suburban cycles, paying attention to performance, the state of charge of the battery, the operating points of the micro-turbine, the input and output energy for each element, and fuel consumption. Then, we analyze the level of pollutant emissions to verify that they are lower than the values set by European legislation, specifically the EURO 6 standard. Finally, the total life cycle costs of the car are analyzed as the sum of the purchase cost, operating costs, and maintenance costs to verify the competitiveness of the configuration in the current market. The car was then compared with the Toyota Yaris Hybrid in terms of performance, fuel consumption, emissions, and costs to highlight advantages and disadvantages.