Influence of Battery Models on the Optimal Design of the Propulsion System of a Hyperloop Capsule

The paper assesses the influence of equivalent circuit battery models on the optimal design of the propulsion system of an energy-autonomous Hyperloop capsule. By knowing a pre-determined payload to be transported along pre-determined trajectories, the problem minimizes the total number of battery cells supplying the capsule propulsion along with the maximization of its performance. The constraints of the problem embed numerically- tractable models of the main components of the electrical propulsion systems and of the battery. Although the optimization problem is non-convex, its constraints are formulated to exhibit a good numerical tractability. After having determined the solutions influenced by a weighting factor with two different battery models, dominant solutions are identified using specific metrics with the purpose of assessing the impact of the battery model on the determined solutions.