• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2013

The stringent emission regulation and future shortage of fossil fuel motivate the research of alternative powertrain. In this study, a system of proton exchange membrane fuel cell has been modeled to analyze the performance of the fuel cell system for automotive application. The model is composed of the fuel cell stack, air compressor, humidifier, and intercooler, and hydrogen supply which are implemented by using the Matlab/Simulink(R). Fuel cell stack model is empirical model but the water transport model is included so that the system performance can be predicted over various humidity conditions. On the other hand, the model of air compressor is composed of motor, static air compressor, and some manifolds so that the motor dynamics and manifold dynamics can be investigated. Since the model is concentrated on the strategic operation of compressor to reduce the power consumption, other balance of components (BOP) are modeled to be static components. Since the air compressor model is empirical model which is based on curve fitting of experiments, the stack model is validated with the commercial software and the experiments. The dynamics of air compressor is investigated over unit change of system load. The results shows that the power consumption of air compressor is about 12% to 25% of stack gross power and dynamic response should be reduced to optimize the system operation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.28-33
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• 2021

With the recent growing interest in eco-friendly cars, as interest in eco-friendly cars increases, interest and purchase of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that do not emit pollutants are increasing. Recently, the government is supporting the expansion of hydrogen charging station and localization of core parts according to the government's hydrogen energy dissemination policy. In this study, the flow characteristics of the hydrogen flow control valve were investigated. As the differential pressure increases, the mass flow rate and flow coefficient tend to be different from the volume flow rate. And it was confirmed that it affects the hydrogen temperature due to the nozzle effect in the bottleneck section, and the change in density affects the mass flow rate.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2022

This paper proposes a power system that includes a 120k W fuel cell DC-DC converter (FDC) and 30 kW bidirectional DC-DC converter (BHDC) for a 150 kW fuel-cell vehicle. With a high DC link voltage of 800 V, the efficiency and power density of the power electronic components are improved. Through the modular design of FDC and BHDC, electric components are shared, resulting in reduced mass production costs. The switching frequency of 30 kHz of full SiC devices and optimal design of coupled inductor reduce the volume, achieving a power density of 8.3 kW/L. Furthermore, a synergetic operation strategy using variable limiter control of FDC and BHDC was proposed to efficiently operate the fuel cell vehicle considering the fuel cell stack efficiency according to the load. Finally, the performance of the prototype was verified by Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule testing, EMI test, and the linked operation between FDC and BHDC. The full load efficiencies of the FDC and BHDC prototypes are 98.47% and 98.74%, respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2024

As the demand for hydrogen electric vehicles for commercial vehicles increases, the durability of PEMFCs must increase more than five times that of passenger cars, so research and development to improve durability is urgent. When the PEMFC membrane electrode assembly (MEA) undergoes chemical degradation, the MEA thickness decreases and pinholes occur. In this study, changes in the performance and durability of the MEA were measured while increasing the clamping pressure of the unit cell after open circuit voltage (OCV) holding, an accelerated chemical degradation experiment. As the clamping pressure increased, the resistance of the polymer membrane and the membrane/electrode contact resistance decreased, improving the I-V performance and reducing the hydrogen permeability. As the hydrogen permeability decreased, the OCV increased. When the pinhole area was removed and the MEA clamping pressure was increased, the hydrogen permeability decreased sharply, confirming that the local degradation has a large effect on the performance and durability of the entire cell. When the pinhole was removed and re-clamping and OCV holding was evaluated, it was confirmed that the durability improved according to the decrease in membrane resistance and hydrogen permeability.