Abstract:
This thesis investigated the difference in the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell system under steady state and transient operations. The main causes that affect the performance of the fuel cell system are identified in both steady state and transient operations. Guidelines for the sizing of auxiliary systems including air compressor and air blower are devised. The normalized power slew rate is used as a parameter indicative of the degree of transient fuel cell operation compared to the transient nature of automotive driving cycles. The fuel cell system is put under 4 standardized driving cycles, including 1) modified FTP75 2) NYCC 3) ECE15 and 4) HWFET. To reveal the underlining dynamics of the operation, the fuel cell is also put under sinusoidal loads with different frequencies. The normalized power slew rate was found to be able to distinguish the steady-state-like behavior from transient behavior. The polarization curve indicated that the stack performance under driving cycles is very similar to the steady-state behavior. The influence of the transient operation to the average stack efficiency over the four driving cycles is minimal (about 1%). The system-level efficiency, however, show a more pronounced difference (about 3%) in the transient operation from the steady-state operation especially at larger load. Periods of water flushing are observed in the compressor power and the air flow rate. Snapshots of the stack voltage reveal that the intermittent peak in compressor power related to the flooding phenomena in the fuel cell stack is responsible for the discrepancy in the transient operation from the steady-state operation. Guidelines for component sizing were considered in terms of power consumption of the air compressor and the air blower. The power consumption was determined from two parts; the shaft power from isentropic model and the loss in the motor from no load test condition. It was experimentally validated that this approach is suitably accurate as a guideline for the system design.