Class-8 Heavy Truck Duty Cycle Project Final Report - Center for ...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Heavy Truck Duty Cycle (HTDC) Project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s
(DOE’s) Office of Vehicle Technologies (OVT). It involved efforts to collect, analyze and archive
data and information related to Class-8 heavy-truck operation in real-world highway environments.
Such data and information is useful to support technology evaluation efforts, and to provide a means
of accounting for real-world driving performance within heavy truck analyses. The Project was led
by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), involves three industry partners (Dana Corporation
(Dana) of Kalamazoo, Michigan; Michelin Americas Research Company (Michelin) of Greenville,
South Carolina; and Schrader Trucking (Schrader) of Jefferson City, Tennessee), and supports the
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) with regard to Class-8 data and information for the development
and evaluation of their Powertrain Systems Analysis Toolkit (PSAT). The Project was conducted in
three phases:
Phase 1 – Pilot Test: Efforts in this phase involved the design, evaluation, and field testing of a
duty cycle data collection system. This phase was initiated in early CY2005 and was completed
in March 2006.
Phase 2 – Field Operational Test Launch: Efforts in this phase involved identification of a
field operational test (FOT) Class-B fleet, fleet Instrumentation, initiation of field testing that
included initial data collection, development of a data management system, and quality assurance
and verification of the collected data. These efforts were in direct follow-on to Phase 1 efforts
and were initiated in February 2006. Phase 2 was completed at the end of CY2006.
Phase 3 – Field Operational Test: Efforts in this phase involved continuation and completion of
the FOT, the conduct of data analyses, completion of the data management system, development
of specialized data handling tools, completion of a Duty Cycle Generation Tool (DCGenT)
prototype, and the production of a final report. These efforts were initiated in October 2006 and
were completed in April, 2008.
Overall, the conduct of the Phase 1 Pilot Test activities allowed the research team to be better prepared
for the conduct of the FOT, in both the analysis of the data generated and in envisioning capabilities for
providing tools for generating custom duty cycle profiles and information. Phase 1 efforts were
concluded in March 2006 (a Phase 1 final report was prepared and submitted to DOE) and Phase 2 was
initiated in April 2006. An initial assessment of the fuel efficiency benefits of the New Generation single
wide-based tires (NGSWBTs) was determined to be 6%. Since data involved only two cross-country data
collection efforts, the fuel savings benefit was not conclusive.
Phase 2 was an eighteen-month effort that began in April 2006 and was concluded in September
2007. Phase 2 involved the development of the FOT sensor suite and the instrumentation of six Class-
B long-haul heavy trucks. Initial data collection and verification were performed during this phase
and were concluded in Phase 3. A major milestone of Phase 2 efforts was the formal launch of the
FOT. This launch was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between
Schrader, UT-Battelle, and DOE on October 23, 2006.
Phase 3 was a seven-month effort which began in October 2007 and concluded in April 2008. Major
Phase 3 efforts involved the completion of the data collection efforts, completion of the prototype
DCGenT, and the conduct of dynamometer testing. The FOT data was archived in a DOE heavy
vehicle data archive system located at ORNL. Data analyses of operational characteristics were also
conducted under Phase 3, and the data archive system was made accessible for use by the research
community and others (with permission from DOE).
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