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Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) require multiple components to operate properly, and the fuel cell stack—the source of power—is one of the most important components. While the number of enterprises manufacturing and selling fuel cell stacks is increasing globaly year after year, the residual challenges of core components and technologies still need to be resolved in order to keep pace with the development of lithium-ion batteries (i.e., its primary competitor). Additionally, many production and distribution standards are seen as unsettled. These barriers make large-scale commercialization an issue. Use of Proton-exchange Membrane Fuel Cells in Ground Vehicles explores the opportunities and challenges within the PEMFC industry. With the help of expert contributors, a critical overview of fuel cells and the FCEV industry is presented, and core technology, applications, costs, and trends are analyzed.

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).

Blower is one of the main noise sources of fuel cell vehicle. In this paper, a narrowband active noise control (ANC) model is established based on adaptive notch filter (ANF) to control the high-frequency noise produced by the blower. Under transient conditions, in order to reduce the frequency mismatch (FM) of ANC for blower, a new Frequency Mismatch Filtered-Error Least Mean Square algorithm (FM-FELMS) is proposed to attenuate blower noise under transient conditions. According to the theoretical analysis and simulation, the proposed algorithm has an excellent noise reduction performance at relatively high blower speed. While for the low speed working condition, the Normalized Least Mean Square (NLMS) algorithm is applied to attenuate noise. The two algorithms could be jointly utilized to control the blower noise actively.

High pressure fuel cell engine, namely high pressure fuel cell system for automobiles, is the core power plant of fuel cell vehicle. Among many categories of fuel cells, proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is the most widely used one for automotive applications, with the characteristic of high power density, fast response and moderate working conditions. The cathode oxygen supply in PEMFC is one of the most important factors which affects its output power and operational lifespan. Reasonable regulation of air supply process flow and pressure can effectively improve system’s performance and efficiency. In this paper, a mathematical model of the air supply system and a model of altitude and environmental pressure are established in MATLAB \ Simulink by mechanism modeling method. Then the modules of the air supply system are integrated to supply air to the 85 KW PEMFC stack model.

Owing to its advantages of high energy density, quick start-up, and no emissions, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is one of the most promising power sources in transportation and has been used for automotive application for years. However, shortcomings in fuel cell key performances, such as lifetime and efficiency, characterized by state of health (SOH), restrict the large-scale commercialization for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), raising demands for real-time state monitoring. Nowadays, most researchers have explored the reasons for state change from models or experiments. Nevertheless, it is in need of system-level researches on definition methods of SOH against the actual automotive application. Lacking accurate quantitative indicators, existing studies on health states are often qualitative and hence fail to consider intermediate processes.

The Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is the most widely used engine in fuel cell vehicles. For PEMFC, whether the supply of oxygen for cathode is adequate or not is a critical factor for its net output power and service life, and the proper control of air supply mass flow and pressure can effectively improve its system performance and efficiency. At present, fuel cells need to reduce the mass and volume and increase the power density. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the air supply pressure for PEMFC. But at the same time, many auxiliary devices are appended to the system to provide high-pressure air, such as air compressor, intercooler, and back pressure valve, which make the control of the entire air supply system very complicated. So an excellent control algorithm is needed.

Fuel cell vehicles have always garnered a lot of attention in terms of energy utilization and environmental protection. In the analysis of fuel cell performance, there are usually some outliers present in the raw experimental data that can significantly affect the data analysis results. Therefore, data cleaning work is necessary to remove these outliers. The polarization curve is a crucial tool for describing the basic characteristics of fuel cells, typically described by semi-empirical formulas. The parameters in these semi-empirical formulas are fitted using the raw experimental data, so how to quickly and effectively automatically identify and remove data outliers is a crucial step in the process of fitting polarization curve parameters. This article explores data-cleaning methods based on the Local Outlier Factor (LOF) algorithm and the Isolation Forest algorithm to remove data outliers.

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) vehicle is one kind of new energy vehicle with fuel cell as power source, which has environmental friendliness, high power density and quick refueling. However, the productlization testing in powertrain system, especially for subsystems and key parts, is one of the critical technical challenges, which restricts the industry development and large-scale commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In this paper, comprehensive testing requirement and latest testing technologies were reviewed, the development status and directions of testing technologies in FCEV powertrain system were presented. Based on comprehensive analysis, X-in-the-Loop (XiL) testing technology was proposed, and it is quite helpful to improve Real-time testing performance and functions for FCEV powertrain system. Furthermore, real-time and reliability as the two key factors for the XiL application was deeply analyzed and discussed.

On account of environmental friendliness, high energy conversion efficiency and high power density, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been used for automotive application for years. However, its durability in powertrain system is one of technical challenges, which restricts the large-scale commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). In addition to the complex aging mechanism of PEMFC, the durability and energy relationship of key components in powertrain system, including battery and DC/DC converter, have a crucial impact on the vehicle performance, which have not been thoroughly analyzed. Nowadays, most researchers have explored the causes of components degradation from models or experiments and tried to carry out the life expectancy. Nevertheless, it is in need of system-level researches on durability against the actual automotive application.

In recent years, fuel cell vehicles have attracted more attention since the advantages of no environmental pollution and high energy density, however, the cost and durability of fuel cells have been important factors limiting the rapid development of fuel cell vehicles. How to quickly predict the life of fuel cells has always been the emphasis and focus of the industry. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on two sets of proton exchange membrane hydrogen fuel cell durability test data. In this paper, we establish a fuel cell life prediction model to carry out product prediction research, using Gated Recurrent Unit Neural Network (GRU-NN)—a variant of “Recurrent Neural Networks” (RNN). This article first divides the two sets of fuel cell durability test data into a training group and a verification group and trains the established neural network model with the test data of the training group.

Fuel cell vehicle commercialization and mass production are challenged by the durability of fuel cells. In order to research the durability of fuel cell stack, it is necessary to carry out the related durability test. The performance prediction of fuel cell stack can be based on a short time durability test result to accurately predict the performance of the fuel cell stack, so it can ensure the timeliness of the test results and reduce the cost of test. In this paper, genetic algorithm-BP neural network (GA-BPNN) is proposed to modeling automotive fuel cell stack to predict the performance of it. Based on the strong global searching ability of genetic algorithm, the initial weights and threshold selection of neural networks are optimized to solve the shortcoming that the random selection of the initial weights and thresholds of BP neural network which can easily lead to the local optimal value.

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.

Centrifugal compressors used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell systems are different from turbochargers in internal combustion engines, because they are required to work at high speed, low mass flow rate, narrow range which nears surge boundaries. In order to meet these requirements, a centrifugal compressor’s volute is designed, analyzed and optimized on its cross-section area, shape of volute tongue and tapered angle of exit. The numerical results show that surge boundary of the compressor is influenced by spiral area significantly and that volute tongue has a major impact on aerodynamic performances at high mass flow rates.

The accelerated global progress in the research and development of automobile products, and the use of new technologies, such as the Internet, cloud computing and big data, to coordinate development platforms in different regions and fields, can reduce the duration and cost of development and testing. Specifically, in the context of the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which has caused great obstacles to normal logistics and transportation, personnel exchanges and information communication, platforms that can support global operation are significant for product testing and validation, because they eliminate the need for the transportation of personnel and equipment. Therefore, the establishment of a distributed test and validation platform for automotive powertrain systems, which can integrate software and hardware testing, is important in terms of both scientific research and industrialization.

Air foil bearings are gradually applied in air compressors in fuel cell vehicles for the advantages of high speed, oil-free and non-contact. Advanced air foil bearings with different structures are used to improve the performance of air compressor. Accurate modeling of the complex structures in air foil bearings has become a research hotspot in recent years. This paper presents a theoretical model for a double-top-foil air foil journal bearing (DAFJB) for centrifugal air compressors used in fuel cell vehicles. The foil structure is modeled by finite element method (FEM) using shell elements. Coulomb law and penalty function method are applied to model the tangential and normal behavior of the contact areas. The local contact between the middle top foil and the bump foil, the bump foil and the bearing sleeve are modeled using node-to-segment contact method. The large-area contact behavior between two layers of top foils is modeled by simplified surface-to-surface contact scheme.

It is very important to investigate how road irregularity excitation will affect the durability, reliability, and performance degradation of fuel cell vehicle powertrain and its key components, including the electric motor, power control unit, power battery package and fuel cell engine system. There are very few published literatures in this research area. In this paper, an elementary but integrated experimental work is described, including the real road load sample on proving ground, road load reproduction on vibration test rig, total vehicle road simulation test and key components vibration tests. Remote parameter control technology is adopted to reproduce the real road load on road simulator and six-degree-of-freedom vibration table, which is used respectively for total vehicle and components vibration tests.

As the most power-consuming component of the fuel cell system, the compressor directly affects the efficiency of the system. Using turbines to recover energy from the exhaust gas, has become a feasible means to improve the fuel cell system’s efficiency. Previous designs are mainly based on high-temperature (>523.15 K) gas. However, the exhaust gas temperature of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell is only about 348.15 K, which is much lower than the working fluid temperature of typical turbines (such as those used in internal combustion engine). In this paper, a turbine rotor for a 100kW fuel cell system was designed. The influences of non-design structural parameters including blade inlet incline angle, blade thickness, blade tip clearance and blade number on the aerodynamic performance and internal flow of the rotor are investigated. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of the rotor single flow is established to predict the turbine aerodynamic performance.

To improve the durability of Proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) in actual transportation application scenario, the research on fault diagnosis of PEMFC is receiving extensive attention. With the development of artificial intelligence, performing fault diagnosis with the massive sampling data of the fuel cell system has become a popular research topic. But few people have successfully verified the diagnosis performance of these artificial intelligence algorithms on a real high power on-board PEMFC system. Therefore, we intend to make a step forward with these data-driven artificial intelligence algorithms. We applied four data-driven artificial intelligence algorithms to diagnose three common faults of PEMFC (each fault type has two severity levels, slight and severe). AVL CRUISE M was firstly applied for generation of simulation fault dataset to speed up the algorithm screening process. Based on the dataset, these algorithms are trained and optimized.

The centrifugal compressor is one of the most commonly used air compressors for fuel cell air supply systems, and it has the small volume, high pressure ratio and low noise. However, surge in a centrifugal compressor severely limits its stable flow range. In this paper, a mathematical model of the compressor aerodynamic performance based on the energy transfer method was established, some parameters of model were identified by experimental data, and the model was validated through experiments. Then the dynamic model of the compression system was derived based on the compressor model and the Moore-Greitzer model. The stability analysis of the compression system was conducted, and it was strictly proved that when the compression system is unstable, there is the limit cycle in this nonlinear system, namely the surge cycle. Furthermore, the simulation of the compression system was conducted and the instability condition of the compression system was presented.

The efficiency and durability of fuel cells are affected by internal water content. Therefore, the active control of humidity is of great significance for vehicle fuel cells, especially for self-humidifying fuel cell systems. To realize fuel cell internal humidity active control, it is necessary to collect the humidity information of stack in real time, so as to carry out feedback control. However, humidity sensor has the characteristics of high cost and low durability, so it is more practical to get the feedback value of humidity by using state estimation method for high-power commercial fuel cell system such as vehicle fuel cell. However, humidity estimation is often affected by other physical or chemical dynamic processes, such as oxygen transportation and response process of electrical appliances. In order to weaken the influence of other physical or chemical dynamic processes on humidity estimation, this paper proposes an adaptive sliding mode Kalman observer (ASMK) algorithm.