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A fuel-cell-powered vehicle requires a plentiful supply of hydrogen to achieve good performance. This can be produced from methanol via an on-board reformer and gas clean-up unit. Since the reformer can take several minutes to reach its operating temperature, it is initially necessary to provide an alternative power source, such as a battery or ultra-capacitor, in order to drive the vehicle. This paper describes the use of a fuel cell vehicle simulation to predict behavior over a drive cycle from a cold start and to evaluate different warm-up control strategies in terms of performance and fuel efficiency.

With current technology, a PEM fuel cell powered vehicle requires a plentiful supply of clean hydrogen to achieve good performance. This can be made available via an on-board methanol reformer. Before the reformer reaches operating temperature it is necessary to obtain energy from an alternative source, such as a battery, in order to power the vehicle. This paper introduces a dynamic model of a methanol reformer fuel cell powered vehicle. The vehicle model is driven over the FTP drive cycle, from a cold start, using various warm up strategies. In this way, different strategies are evaluated in terms of performance and fuel efficiency.