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A liquid fuelled, fuel cell auxiliary power unit (APU) can provide efficient, quiet and low pollution power for a variety of applications including commercial and military vehicles. Truck idling regulation, customer comfort or military “stealth” operation by using electrical power, require a device disconnected from the main diesel engine. The power can be utilized for air conditioning as well as other auxiliary systems found on board commercial trucks for driver comfort. In a military vehicle, this regulated power could be supplied to telecommunication and other computer equipment required for military operations. A system designed to be an add-on or retrofit solution using alternative fuel can have the potential to meet these requirements on the hundreds of thousands of existing vehicles currently in service or as optional equipment on a newly procured vehicle.

The main issues related to the vibration response and acoustic noise emission of a new liquid fuelled fuel cell APU (auxiliary power unit) system are discussed and analyzed. These problems are being addressed in an on-going research project. The APU is comprised of several critical subsystems including the fuel processing system, fuel stack, heat exchanger, compressor, as well as high-pressure and low-pressure components. The vibration concern deals with the design of a two-stage isolation mount system to shield these critical parts from the shock and steady-state dynamics coming through the truck frame during on-road traveling conditions. A lumped parameter dynamic model is formulated for use in optimizing the mount stiffnesses and locations. Acoustic concerns are primarily related to exterior noise levels when the truck is at a rest stop. To address those issues, experimental studies are conducted to quantify the main sources and paths for noise.