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For further details of this year's conference, visit the event website.
Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with vehicle thermal management.
Chris Roberts (CR): I work as a technical specialist for thermal management systems hardware, and as an expert in thermal system validation. I lead a team of subject matter experts, to research, develop and deploy cutting edge thermal system technologies within luxury vehicles. We set the strategy and standards of thermal system hardware deployed within Jaguar Land rover. I also lead a team of system validation engineers, who validate the overall thermal system function and performance ensuring that the customers attributes are met. We use a combination of HIL rigs and vehicles to mature our validations, pioneering automated test and analysis techniques to meet the challenges of increasing system validation complexity.
What is the top challenge facing your industry at present?
CR: Striking the balance between in-use and embedded CO2 is going to be a challenge. Significant improvements in vehicle efficiency have been achieved through the use of complex thermal management systems. The difficulty in the future will be striking a balance between the environmental cost of technology deployment vs the cost of production of the technology, when customer usage of these technologies is well understood. More needs to be done regarding the use of post-consumer recycled and low CO2e materials. Moving from the status quo of conventional materials developed for conventional vehicles and re-thinking their application is going to be the key to unlocking this.
How would you say your industry has evolved over the past five years?
CR:5 years ago, electrification was for early adopters and most OEM’s were rolling out their first volume range of electrified propulsion options to customers. Now electrified vehicles are a core offering, with the technology now deep within steep portion of the technology deployment curve. OEMs now have to solve how to offer these competitively as subsidies and novelty fade. As engineers we have to work hard to remove complexity, reduce cost and truly make these an attractive proposition for the discerning customer in an economy where value is heavily scrutinized.
What developments are going on in your industry that may have an impact on the development of future thermal management systems and wider powertrain efficiencies:
CR: Clearly the race to electrification is the most obvious, but it is the subtleties within this which are important; Battery technology developments on the horizon to solid state cell chemistries allows for higher operation temperatures and may render the requirements for refrigerant cooled circuits obsolete.
The desire for reduced charging times is pushing the boundary for cell cooling efficiency and alternative coolants are being developed for pack immersion. An interesting challenge is how can thermal systems be used to turn around the range race seen in the electrification space today? Hyper-rapid charging enabled by thermal systems could support fitting smaller capacity, lighter battery packs reducing unnecessary materials to be deployed within many vehicles today which are used primarily quell charging anxiety? PFAS legislation is driving the application of new-to-the automotive industry refrigerants. Connected and automated vehicles enable customer usage to become better understood and predicted. This enables huge potential in optimisations of control systems and technology deployment. It’s an exciting space.
Why is it important for engineers and industry to come together at this event and share best practice?
CR: It is important for engineers to collaborate and share knowledge through events like this because we are all facing the same challenge. We are trying to move our industry to a greener, less environmentally impactful one. We cannot achieve this if we all work towards this goal on our own and in isolation. We must all challenge each other, learn from each other and most importantly congratulate, support and enable each other’s successes. Only by doing this, can we say we are creating a positive impact and contributing towards a net-zero future.
This year's Vehicle Thermal Management Systems Conference and Exhibition will return to the British Motor Museum in Warwick on 5-6 June 2024.
VTMS16 will explore the necessity and complexity of battery analysis through differing simulation techniques and offer a system engineering approach to balancing duration, durability, and immersive coolant technologies.
For further details of this year's conference, visit the event website.