The major challenge in powertrain development today is focused around rapidly shortening vehicle development cycles. To meet this challenge there is a significant need for parallel development of key powertrain components as well as a holistic testing of the powertrain. The position of powertrain testing during the vehicle development has changed dramatically. Significant improvements are achievable today by a holistic approach of optimizing the complete powertrain. The "road to rig" allows dynamic testing of the transmission and/or powertrain in a virtual environment. Drive train test beds are used to test transmissions in combination with axle drives, all-wheel-drive-system, cardan and drive shafts. Due to the parallel development of engine and transmission it is difficult to obtain combustion engines ready for endurance testing. This forces the need to replace the engine by a high-dynamic electric drive. This paper describes the basic idea to simulate the mechanical characteristics of combustion engines, e. g. different numbers of cylinders and shows the limitation which can be reached.
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