Modeling and Evaluation of High Temperature PEM Fuel Cells for Truck Applications

Abstract: With increasing demands on lowering carbon emissions, fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEV) have been seen as an alternative to the fossil-fuel driven trucks of today. These would have less emissions and strive to have the same range as any diesel driven transport vehicle. A lot of effort and resources have been put into fuel cell research for incorporation in new powertrains. There are however many different fuel cell types, so the aim of the thesis was to explore two different fuel cell types for use in a FCHEV model.The thesis sets up a model consisting of various subsystems of a high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC). Components for the power electronics and a cooling system are also incorporated. The system was then combined with a vehicle model, where a power split between the fuel cell and battery was investigated. The performance of the HT-PEMFC was compared to a low temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (LT-PEMFC) on three levels with increasing complexity. These were on a single cell level, stack level and on a vehicle level.The results showed that the HT-PEMFC had worse performance than the LT-PEMFC on both a cell and vehicle level. The power output of an HT-PEMFC was lower for all current densities, meaning more cells were needed in order for the HT-PEMFC to have the same power output as an LT-PEMFC. It did however have a better cooling ability and was a simpler system, which therefore does warrant further investigation on its future use in transport applications. If heat recuperation was investigated further, the HT-PEMFC performance would have been increased to a higher degree than the LT-PEMFC.