• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.561-570
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• 2010

This paper presents an advanced dynamic simulation model of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell for the optimal design of a fuel cell power conditioning system (FC-PCS). For the development of fuel cell models, the dynamic characteristics of the fuel cell are considered, including its static characteristics. Then, software fuel cell simulation is realized using Matlab-Simulink. Specifically, the design consideration of PCS (i.e., power semiconductor switch, capacitor, and inductor) is discussed by comparatively analyzing the developed simulator and ideal DC source. In addition, a cosimulation between the fuel cell model and PCS realized using the PSIM software is performed with the help of the SimCoupler module. Detailed analysis and informative simulation results are provided for the optimal design of fuel cell PCS.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.202-210
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• 2011

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell is one of the popular renewable energy sources and widely used in commercial medium power areas from portable electronic devices to electric vehicles. In addition, the increased integration of the PEM fuel cell with power electronics, dynamic loads, and control systems requires accurate electrical models and simulation methods to emulate their electrical behaviors. Advancement in parallel computation techniques, various real-time simulation tools, and smart power hardware have allowed the prototyping of novel apparatus to be investigated in a virtual system under a wide range of realistic conditions repeatedly, safely, and economically. This paper builds up advancements of optimized model constructions for a fuel cell stack system on a real-time simulator in the view points of improving dynamic model accuracy and boosting computation speed. In addition, several considerations for a power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulation are provided to electrically emulate the PEM fuel cell stack system with power facilities. The effectiveness of the proposed PHIL simulation method developed on Opal RT's RT-Lab Matlab/Simulink based real-time engineering simulator and a programmable power supply is verified using experimental results of the proposed PHIL simulation system with a Ballard Nexa fuel cell stack.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.11c
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• pp.170-174
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• 2007

Recently, a fuel cell is remarkable for new generation system. The fuel cell generation system converts the chemical energy of a fuel directly into electrical energy. The fuel cell generation is characterized by low voltage and high current. For connecting to utility, it needs both a step up converter and an inverter. The step up converter makes DC link and the inverter changes DC to AC. In this paper full bridge converter and the single phase inverter are designed and installed for fuel cell. Simulation and experiment verify that fuel cell generation system could be applied for the distributed generation.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.60-66
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• 2007

In terms of the vehicle efficiency, a fuel cell hybrid system has advantages compared to a conventional internal combustion engine and a fuel cell alone-powered system. The efficiency of the fuel cell hybrid vehicle mainly depends on the maximum power of the fuel cell and therefore it is important to decide the design value of the fuel cell maximum power. In this paper, to estimate the performance of the fuel cell hybrid mini-bus in the design phase the simulator based on the models for the fuel cell stack, the electric battery, the fuel cell balance of plant, the controller, and the vehicle itself is proposed. Additionally, the hybrid mini-bus efficiencies with several different fuel cell powers are simulated for a city driving schedule and are compared on another. Consequently, the proposed simulation scheme is useful to determine the best design value of the fuel cell hybrid vehicles.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.99-102
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• 2006

Optimal flow-field design of bipolar-plates for a commercial class PEM(polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell stack was carried out on the basis of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulation. A three-dimensional CFD model originally developed by Shimpalee et al., has been utilized for performing large-scale simulation of a single fuel cell consisting of bipolar-plates gas diffusion layers, and a membrane-electrode-assembly(MEA). The CFD model is able to predict the current density, pressure drops, gas velocities, vapor and liquid water contents, temperature distributions, etc. inside a single fuel cell. Depending on simulation results from the CFD modeling of a PEM fuel cell, several flow-fields of bipolar-plates were designed and verified. The final design of the bipolar-plate has been chosen from the simulations and experimental tests and showed the best performance as expected from the simulation results under a normal operating condition. Thus, the CFD simulation approach to design the optimal flow-field of the bipolar-plates was successful. The final design was adopted as the best flow-field to build a commercial scale PEM fuel cell stack, the performance of which shows about 42% higher than that of the older bipolar-plate design.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.287-295
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• 2004

A performance simulator for the fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle (FCHEV) is developed to evaluate the potentials of hybridization for fuel cell electric vehicle. Dynamic models of FCHEV's electric powertrain components such as fuel cell stack, battery, traction motor, DC/DC converter, etc. are obtained by modular approach using MATLAB SIMULINK. In addition, a thermodynamic model of the fuel cell is introduced using bondgraph to investigate the temperature effect on the vehicle performance. It is found from the simulation results that the hybridization of fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) provides better hydrogen fuel economy especially in the city driving owing to the braking energy recuperation and relatively high efficiency operation of the fuel cell. It is also found from the thermodynamic simulation of the FCEV that the fuel economy and acceleration performance are affected by the temperature due to the relatively low efficiency and reduced output power of the fuel cell stack at low temperature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2007

In this paper, a mathematical modeling was developed to simulate 1kW class air cooled Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) system. The proposed modeling was conducted under SIMULINK based environment. The model ing was developed based on the thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium. The objective is to design and implement the entire fuel cell system model ing including the system controller modeling. The fuel cell process and the control system modeling should have to be connected with each other simultaneously， therefore the two types of modeling influences each other when the system simulator run. The fuel cell modeling libraries are simulated using the SIMULINK under the thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium base. The PID controller application was designed and developed to test the process modeling and verify it. This the prototype development of the fuel cell system to design and test more complicate fuel cell systems, like the residential power generation system. The simulation results was compared to the real PEMFC system performance. We have achieved the reasonable accordance with the Lab test and the simulation results.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.1 no.4 s.4
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• pp.43-48
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• 2005

This study presents the integrated modeling approach to simulate the proton exchange membrane [PEM] fuel cell system for vehicle application. The fuel cell system consisting of stack and balance of plant (BOP) was simulated with MATLAB/Simulink environment to estimate the maximum system power and investigate the effect of BOP component sizing on system performance and efficiency. The PEM fuel cell stack model was established by using a semi-empirical modeling. To maximize the net efficiency of fuel cell system, multi-variable optimization code was adopted. Using this method, the optimized operating values were obtained according to various system net power levels. The fuel cell model established was co-linked to AVL CRUISE, a vehicle simulation package. Through the vehicle simulation software, the fuel economy of fuel cell powered electric vehicle for two types of driving cycles was presented and compared. It is expected that this study can be effectively employed in the basic BOP component sizing and in establishing system operation map with respect to net power level of fuel cell system.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.541-544
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• 2005

This study presents the integrated modeling approach to simulate the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system for vehicle application. The fuel cell system consisting of stack and balance of plant (BOP) was simulated with MATLAB/Simulink environment to estimate the maximum system power and investigate the effect of BOP component sizing on system performance and efficiency. The PEM fuel cell stack model was established by using a semi-empirical modeling. To maximize the net efficiency of fuel cel1 system, multi-variable optimization code was adopted. Using this method the optimized operating values were obtained according to various system net power levels. The fuel cell model established was co-linked to AVL CRUISE, a vehicle simulation package. Through the vehicle simulation software, the fuel economy of fuel cell powered electric vehicle for two types of driving cycles was presented and compared. It is expected that this study tan be effectively employed in the basic BOP component sizing and in establishing system operation map with respect to net power level of fuel cell system.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.405-418
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• 2014

Fuel cells are suitable for a power plant of a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as it is not only environmentally friendly and quiet but also more efficient than an internal combustion engine. A fuel cell hybrid UAV has better performance in endurance than a fuel cell only or battery only UAV. One of the key purposes of making fuel cell hybrid UAVs is having long endurance and now maximum 26 hours of flight is possible. Because optimal design and control methods for fuel cell hybrid UAVs are absolutely needed for their long endurance we have to check the methods. The aircraft made by using application-integrated design method has less BOP mass and better performances. The optimal design and control methods are generally based on computer simulations or Hardware-In-The-Loop simulations by using dynamic models for their design and control. The Hardware-In-The-Loop simulation (HILS) is to use a hardware device like a fuel cell stack as well as a simulation program and it allows for making optimally designed applications. This paper introduce efficient methods of design, control and evaluation for the fuel cell hybrid UAVs.