Fuel Efficiency Evaluation of Gas Turbine Engine Based

Hybrid Vehicles

Michael Ben Chaim1, Efraim Shmerling2 and Alon Kuperman3*

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics

2
Department of Computer Sciences and Mathematics

3
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics

*
Corresponding Author, Email: alonku@ariel.ac.il, Tel: +972-526-943234

Ariel University

Ariel, 40700
Abstract - The purpose of the contribution is evaluating the fuel efficiency of gas

turbine engine based hybrid vehicles, which can be manufactured utilizing modern

technologies. An analytical equation for calculating fuel consumption is derived

taking into account specific properties of hybrid vehicles. European Union Directives

and regulations of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe are adopted

to evaluate the fuel efficiency. The equation is first verified by calculating the mileage

of several commercial hybrid passenger vehicles and then applied to gas turbine based

hybrid vehicles. It is revealed that even though gas turbine engine possesses relatively

poor efficiency, reduced turbine-generator weight results in a lower overall weight of

the vehicle, leading to fuel consumption decrease. The estimated fuel efficiency of gas

turbine engine based vehicles is shown to be on a par with the efficiency of widely

employed diesel and gasoline engine based vehicles.

Keywords - gas turbine, hybrid vehicle, urban driving cycle, fuel economy.
 1. Introduction

The idea of using gas turbine (GT) engines in ground vehicles is not novel; a lot of

research on gas turbine based hybrid engines have been performed in the past. Toyota

demonstrated the hybrid technology in 1975 and Volvo Cars built a concept car in

1990 (Watanabe et al. 1985; Society of Automotive Engineers 1980; Cheng et al.

1997). Nevertheless the idea has not received much attention recently from either

researchers or manufacturers (Christodoulou et al. 2011). The main reason is the fact

that GT engines are inferior to piston engines in terms of fuel efficiency, which is

undoubtedly the most important engine performance indicator (Capstone Turbine

Corporation 2011; Schwaller 1977; Granet et al. 2004). Nevertheless, the emergence

and rapid developments of full hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HVs) -

whose electric drive train supplies the acceleration energy, leaving the engine to

operate in the optimal mode almost all the time by supplying the average vehicle

power demand - make this idea worthy of serious consideration (Wong 2001).

When comparing GT engines in HVs to piston engines, it must be emphasized that

GT engines have several important and widely recognized advantages. A GT can

develop greater speeds (105 rpm is a typical value (Capstone Turbine Corporation

2011)), allowing significant mass reduction of both the engine and generator and as a

result of the vehicle as a whole (Thern et al. 2007; Tesla Motors Inc. 2011). Other

important advantages that have been mentioned in the literature include higher

environmental performance, smaller amount of engine parts and ease of upgrade when

switching to other fuels (Granovskii et al. 2006; Gupta 1997). As for the relatively

high initial cost of GT engines, calculations show that it is offset by higher mileage

before overhaul and lower cost of technical maintenance (Chen et al. 1998).
 Currently, two major sets of regulations are applied in Europe, binding all the

vehicle manufacturers. These are EU Directives and the norms and regulations of the

UN ECE, which are applicable in most countries worldwide. The calculations

proposed in the paper are governed by Directives of UN ECE. According to UN ECE

requirements and the above directives, fuel consumption is normally indicated in three

traffic modes: urban, non-urban, and mixed traffic and appropriate tests are conducted

on a chassis dynamometer workbenc (UNECE 2011).

According to the above mentioned rules and regulations, the ECE Type 1 test is

employed for Europe Dynamometer Operating Cycles. The test consists of two parts,

Elementary Urban Cycle and Extra Urban Driving Cycle (USEPA 2011). The first

part of ECE Type 1 test is considered in the manuscript. In order to estimate the fuel

efficiency of GT engines in HVs, an equation for calculating fuel consumption is

derived in the manuscript. Unlike conventional fuel efficiency equations described in

the literature, the proposed equation takes into account the above mentioned specific

characteristic of fully hybrid and plug-in HVs regarding the average and acceleration

powers splitting between the engine and electric drive train.

The manuscript reveals that GT engine based hybrid vehicles’ fuel economy may

be on a par with that of diesel and gasoline engine based vehicles. This is a

convincing argument in favor of the suggestion that reliable low-power GT engines,

the production of which has been made possible by the recent advances in the

development of the theory of turbomachinery and the combustion theory, as well as

the development of modern technologies in metallurgy and in the field of composite

materials, have the potential of successfully replacing piston engines in HVs

(Lefebvre et al. 2010; Polyzakis et al. 2008).

 The rest of the article is organized as follows. The analytical derivation of fuel

consumption estimating equation is presented in Section 2. The validity of the

equation is verified in Section 3 and is applied to estimating the fuel economy of GT

engine based HVs in Section 4. The manuscript is concluded in Section 5.

 2. Estimating Fuel Consumption

According to the conventional ground vehicle theory, fuel consumption is usually

determined assuming that the car is in a "continuous acceleration" mode, i.e. the

internal combustion engine supplies both average power and peaking power,

demanded by accelerations. While adequate for conventional cars, this approach is

inaccurate for full hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles due to their special technical

properties. In such vehicles, the engine operates during most of the time in an optimal

mode, while the peaking power source (rechargeable batteries and/or ultracapacitors)

are used to supply the acceleration power (Ehsani et al. 2010; Gaevsky et al. 2007).

Here, the assumption that the engine operates in optimal mode constantly (leading to

an underestimation of fuel consumption) is counterbalanced by neglecting the

regeneration energy (results in an overestimation of fuel consumption). The validity

of such suppositions will be supported by the next Section results.

Fig. 1: Vehicle power profile decomposition

In this subsection, a modified fuel consumption equation is derived, taking into

consideration fuel economy assessment technologies, as stated in EU Directives and

in norms and regulations of the UN ECE.

 The fuel consumption on a flat road (liters per distance interval of X km) is

typically estimated according to the following expression (Ehsani et al. 2010;

Gaevsky et al. 2007)

g e × ( Prl + Pw + Pa ) × X
QS = [l ], (1)
1000 × Va ×ht × r f

where

ge is the average specific fuel consumption, [g/kWh];

Prl is the average vehicle power consumed in overcoming the rolling resistance, [kW];

Pw is the average vehicle power consumed in overcoming the aerodynamic drag,

[kW];

Pa is average vehicle power consumed in overcoming the inertial acceleration, [kW];

ηt is the mechanical drive train efficiency;

ρf is the fuel density, [kg/l];

Va is the average vehicle speed, [km/h].

Equation (1) implies that the acceleration power is supplied by the engine; hence

the average specific fuel consumption is non-optimal. Therefore, the equation is

inapplicable for HVs.

It is suggested that fuel consumption estimate per 100 km interval may be

determined using total energy expenditure Es as follows. The overall consumed

energy is separated into two components: energy required for overcoming the forces

of resistances E1 and kinetic energy required for accelerations E2, i.e.

Es = E1 + E2 , (2)

where

E1 is the energy required to overcome the rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag at

100 km interval, [J];

E2 is the kinetic energy required for episodic accelerations at 100 km interval, [J].

The first energy component is determined by dividing the 100 km distance into I

subintervals and summing the energies of each as (Ehsani et al. 2010).

I æ v (t ) ì v (t ) ü
3
ö
E1 = å ò ç mv × g × f r × i + 0.5 × r a × CD × A f ×í i ý ÷÷dt [ J ], (3a)
ç
i =1 Ti è 3.6 î 3.6 þ ø

where

vi(t) is the instantaneous vehicle speed at subinterval i, [km/h];

Ti is the i-th subinterval duration [sec];

mv is the vehicle mass, [kg];

fr is the rolling resistance coefficient;

CD is the aerodynamic drag coefficient;

ρa is the air density, [kg/m3];

Af is the vehicle frontal area, [m2];

g is the acceleration of gravity, [m/s2].

Assuming there are J accelerations per 100 km, the acceleration energy is calculated

by

mv × g m J
E2 =
2 × 3.62
å (V
j =1
2
2
- V12 ) j [ J ], (3b)

where

γm is the mass factor of the car, which equivalently converts the rotational inertia of

rotating components into translation mass (Ehsani et al. 2010);

V2 is the speed after acceleration, [km/h];

V1 is the speed before acceleration, [km/h].

The fuel consumption per 100 km in terms of energy expenditure is determined

from (Ehsani et al. 2010).

ES
QS = [l ], (4)
he.ave ×ht × H l

where

ηe,ave is the average engine efficiency;

Hl is the fuel calorific value, [J/l].

 Substituting (1)-(3) into (4), and noting that in case of HV the engine efficiency is

maximal at all time, the general expression for HV fuel consumption per 100 km is

obtained as

(5)

ïì I æ ì vi (t ) ü ö mv × g m ïü
3 J
1 vi (t )
QS = íå ò çç mv × g × f r × + 0.5 × ra × CD × Af × í ý ÷÷dt + å -
2 2
(V V ) ý [l ].
h e,max ×ht × H l 2 × 3.6 2
1 2 j
ïî i =1 Ti è 3.6 î 3.6 þ ø j =1 ïþ

with ηe,max being the maximal engine efficiency.

 3. Theory Verification

In order to examine the validity of the above mentioned assumptions and the

feasibility of conclusions based on (5), fuel consumption of several existing HVs was

calculated using (5) and compared to the available experimental data (USDE 2011).

The UN/ECE Elementary Urban Cycle, shown in Fig. 1 was adopted.

50

40
velocity [km/h]

30

20

10

0
0 50 100 150
time [sec]

Fig. 2: UN/ECE Elementary Urban Driving Cycle

The main characteristics of the cycle are summarized in Table 1 (UKDT 2011).

According to Fig. 2, the cycle consists of four non-zero constant state speed intervals

and three following accelerations: 0 – 15 km/h, 0 – 32 km/h and 0 – 50 km/h

(decelerations are neglected). In addition, since the total distance of a cycle is

approximately 1 km, the cycle is repeated 100 times to cover 100km, i.e. I = 300 and

J = 700 are substituted in (5).

Table 1: Main characteristics of UN/ECE Elementary Urban Driving Cycle

Parameter Value
Total distance 994.6 m
Total time 195 s
Driving time 150 s
Standing time 45 s
Accelerating time 53 s
Average speed 18.4 km/h
Maximum speed 50 km/h
Number of acceleration intervals 3
Number of total nonzero intervals 7
 The results of the verification are given in Table 2. It can be concluded that the

values calculated by (5) are very close to the experimental ones (the maximum

deviation is less than 5%), which proves that Eq. (5) can be adopted for fuel

consumption prediction.

Table 2: Fuel consumption of different hybrid vehicles

Hybrid Vehicle Type Fuel Consumption, l/100 km
from (UKDT 2011) from (5)
Honda Insight 3.90 3.73
Toyota Prius 4.90 5.10
Lexus GS 450 7.90 7.54
Ford Fusion 6.55 6.55
Honda Civic 5.35 5.32
 4. Application to Gas Turbine Based Hybrid Vehicles

4.1. Determining the vehicle mass

According to (5), in order to determine the fuel consumption of HV equipped with

various heat engines, it is important to identify the mass of the vehicle. A GT-

equipped vehicle benefits from a reduced weight due to the low specific mass of both

the GT and associated generator. The mass of the generator can be estimated as

(Zwyssig et al. 2005; Tuysuz et al. 2010)

P×r
g
m = 0.09 , (6)
g C ×n

where

P is the engine power, [W];

ρg is the average density of rotor materials, [g/cm3];

C is the torque-per-volume constant, [N∙m/cm3];

n is the engine rotational speed, [rpm].

According to (Tuysuz et al. 2010), Eq. (6) is a fair approximation for engines rated at

from several hundred watts up to tens of kilowatts. The mass of the engine is

estimated as (Schwaller 1977; Granet et al. 2004)

P
m = . (7)
e 1000 × m

The ranges of specific mass µ are summarized in Table 3 (Schwaller 1977; Granet et

al. 2004) for various engine types along with rotational speeds and engine
efficiencies. Note that newly developed diesel engines for several hundred kilowatt

hybrid drives may reach 42% efficiency, however the efficiencies of diesel engines

rated at several tens of kilowatts are as indicated in the Table. The average density of

rotor materials and the torque-per-volume constants are assumed to be the same for

the three mentioned engine types and possess the values of 7.5 g/cm3 and 0.036

N∙m/cm3, respectively.

Table 3: Technical parameters of various engines

Type of engine Rotor speed Specific mass Engine efficiency,
n, [rpm] μ, [kW/kg] ηe
Diesel 3960 0.50-0.62 0.25-0.30
Gasoline 4980 0.65-0.77 0.25-0.30
GT 90000 5-7 0.20-0.25

In order to determine the mass ratio of different vehicles, assume that the total

mass (mv) of the HV with a GT is 1000 kg and the rating of the engine is 50 kW.

Hence, in order to determine the mass of a vehicle equipped with a different type of

engine, the mass of the engine and the generator is added to the mass of the GT-based

vehicle without its engine and generator. For example, according to Table 4 the total

mass of a diesel engine based hybrid vehicle is calculated using the following: 90.9 +

170.5 + (1000 – 10 – 9.4) = 1242 kg. Note that the generator and engine masses in

Table 5 were calculated according to Eqs. (6) and (7), respectively and the specific

mass in Eq. (7) was chosen as the median value of the range, given in Table 3.

Table 4: Mass of components and vehicles with various engines

Engine mass Generator mass Total vehicle mass
Type of engine me, [kg] mg, [kg] mv, [kg]
Diesel 90.9 170.5 1242
Gasoline 71.4 117.2 1169.2
GT 10 9.4 1000
4.2 Estimated fuel consumption of generic hybrid vehicles with different engine

types

The calculations were performed by applying (5) to UN/ECE Elementary Urban

Driving Cycle. Vehicle masses, given in Table 4 and parameters, presented in Table 5

were adopted. The resulting fuel consumptions are summarized in Table 6.

Table 5: Summary of parameters used in calculations

Engine ηe ηt Hl fr ρa·CD Af γm

Diesel 0.28 0.93 34∙106 0.018 0.3 1.6 1.2

Gasoline 0.28 0.94 36∙106 0.018 0.3 1.6 1.2

GT 0.23 0.95 36∙106 0.018 0.3 1.6 1.08

Table 6: Calculated fuel consumption

Type of engine Fuel consumption Fuel consumption
l/100km Mpg
Diesel 5.07 46.39
Gasoline 4.46 52.74
GT 4.39 53.53

4.3 Discussion

According to the data, presented in Table 6, it can be concluded that modern GT

engine based HVs may be as good as gasoline engines and better than diesel engines

in terms of fuel consumption, despite the lower engine efficiency of GT compared to

piston engines. This is due to the fact that employing GT engines leads to significant

vehicle mass reduction (as demonstrated in Table 4), which significantly improves

fuel consumption. Given the widely recognized advantages of GT engines described

above, it can be concluded that they can successfully compete with piston engines in

HVs.
 5. Conclusion

Fuel efficiency of modern gas turbine engine based hybrid vehicles was estimated

in the manuscript and compared to the fuel efficiency of the piston engine based

hybrid vehicles. An equation for calculating fuel consumption of fully hybrid and

plug-in hybrid vehicles was derived. It was assumed that the acceleration energy is

provided by the electrical drive train, leaving the fuel-based source to supply the

average power of the vehicle. The equation was verified by calculating the mileage of

several commercial hybrid passenger vehicles, and comparing the results to the

available test results. It was revealed that the results are close when adopting an urban

driving cycle according to the European Union Directives and regulations of the

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Then the equation was applied to

calculating fuel efficiency of a generic gas-turbine engine based hybrid vehicle. The

relatively poor efficiency of gas turbine was offset by reduced turbine-generator

weight, resulting in a lower overall weight of the vehicle, leading to fuel consumption

decrease. Estimated fuel efficiency of gas turbine engine based vehicles was shown

to be similar to the efficiency of widely employed diesel and gasoline engine based

vehicles. Based on the results, given the advantages of gas turbines, which include

higher environmental performance and lower weight, it can be concluded that gas

turbine engines may have the potential of replacing piston engines in hybrid cars.
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