The abatement of polluting gas emission generated by road transport represents an important need of our contemporary civilization. This subject has consequently become a research theme on a world scale. From this point of view, the hybrid-series technology is arousing a great interest as it represents a currently feasible solution capable of providing encouraging results under all the aspects of low environmental impact, performance, costs and feasibility. Hybrid technology is particularly appreciated for fleets of vehicles used for public transport within urban agglomerations; a broad expertise has been developed and acquired on the local service buses running in Italy (Genoa, Rome, Terni) in addition to traditional means. The subject of this study is concerned with a new application consisting in the realization of a hybrid-series vehicle working in an urban agglomeration and used for rubbish collection and compaction. The correct operation of a hybrid-series system requires a complex engineering study, necessary to perform a correct dimensioning of the requisite components and to better organize the different energetic flows operating throughout this kind of energy chain. A dedicated software has been worked out within this research to allow the analysis of internal system values, obtained at any instant, as well as of the integral average values relevant to a whole working cycle. The model validation has been obtained according to experimental results based on currently running vehicles dedicated to public transport. The analysis performed on the operating fleet of hybrid means reveals an abatement equal to 80% of polluting emission and 20% of fuel consumption as compared to traditional vehicles. This study is not only restricted to a theoretic treatment of the subject but has also been taken as a basis for the design of a compactor vehicle, worked out in collaboration with a company operating in this field. For the covering abstract see ITRD E120462.
Abstract