Design and Control of Thermal Management System for the Fuel Cell Vehicle in Low-Temperature Environment 2020-01-0851

In low-temperature environment, heat supply requires considerable energy, which significantly increases energy consumption and shortens the mileage of electric vehicle. In the fuel cell vehicles, waste heat generated by the fuel cell system can supply heat for vehicle. In this paper, a thermal management system is designed for a the fuel cell interurban bus. Thermal management strategy aiming at temperature regulation for the fuel cell stack and the passenger compartment and minimal energy consumption is proposed. System model is developed and simulated based on AMESim and Matlab/Simulink co-simulation. Simulation results show that the fuel cell system can provide about 78 % energy of maximum heat requirement in -20 °C ambient temperature environment. Comparing to the same vehicle with only electric heat supply system, total electric energy is reduced by 19.1 % in startup cycle and by 31.5% in a driving cycle, which is a significant improvement to the fuel economic in low - temperature environment.