Influence of the Cooling System and Road Topology on Heavy Duty Truck Platooning

Heavy Duty Truck Platooning promises to reduce the fuel consumption in long haul road transportation. This paper analyzes possible fuel savings, taking different driving scenarios and the energy demand of the vehicles’ cooling system into account. To estimate the aerodynamic drag resistance and radiator airflow, a platoon of European flat nose box trucks with varying gaps has been simulated using 3D computational fluid dynamics. A longitudinal dynamics simulation coupled with a 1D cooling system model was used to determine the fuel consumption. The platoon’s fuel economy in comparison to a reference vehicle travelling alone was evaluated for different road inclinations and frequencies of highway exits. The results show a strong dependency of the fuel consumption on the distance between highway exits, thus limiting the amount of road sections, platooning can be performed on. The study estimates the breakeven distance between platoon formation and breakup for heavy duty truck platooning in order to reduce the overall fuel consumption.