Automotive use of fuel cells has received increased attention due to clean and efficient power generation. Successful vehicular applications require careful balance of design and control trade-offs. This article presents a model-based vehicle design capability with sufficient fidelity and efficiency to perform design and power management optimization using quasisteady fuel cell performance maps. Optimized fuel cell systems demonstrate a trade-off between power density and efficiency depending on compressor size. Vehicle performance can be improved significantly when the fuel cell system is designed to balance this trade-off.

Issue Section:
Research Papers
Keywords:
fuel cell vehicles, optimisation
Topics:
Compressors, Design, Fuel cell vehicles, Fuel cells, Optimization, Vehicles, Power density, Simulation, Flow (Dynamics), Automotive design
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 by American Society of Mechanical Engineers
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