Search Results

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system has emerged as the state-of-art power source for the electric vehicle, but the widespread commercial application of fuel cell vehicle is restricted by its short service life. An enabling high accuracy model holds the key for better understanding, simulation, analysis, subsystem control of the fuel cell system to extract full power and prolong the lifespan. In this paper, a quasi-dynamic lumped parameters model for a 3kW stack is introduced, which includes filling-and-emptying volume sub-models for the relationships between periphery signals and internal states, static water transferring sub-model for the membrane, and empirical electrochemical sub-model for the voltage response. Several dynamic experiments are carried out to identify unknown parameters of the model.

The cold-start of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been one of the technical challenges for fuel cell vehicle table ommercialization. In this study, a one-dimensional cold start transient model of PEMFC was developed for the transfer of water, heat, electrons and protons during the cold start process. Different loading modes, including constant voltage, constant current, and current ramping, were adopted for fuel cell cold starting analysis, respectively. The internal water-heat transfer within fuel cell was investigated under different loading modes. The results show that in the constant current mode, for the high current, the cold start process can produce more heat than other modes, which can increase fuel cell temperature rapidly. However, this process may easily fail before the ice fully covers the cathode catalyst layers (CL).