Analysis of Spatially Modelled High Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell under Dynamic Load Conditions

Abstract

This paper presents an interesting approach to observe the effects of the load variations on the performance of high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell system, such as: hydrogen and air flow rate, output voltage, power and efficiency. The main advantage of this approach is to analyse the internal behaviour of the fuel cell like current-voltage characteristics during energy conversion, when the load is varying dynamically. This approach of power system simulation models fuel cell system by integrating 3D-COMSOL model of high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with MATLAB/Simulink model of the fuel cell system. The MATLAB/Simulink model for the fuel cell system includes the fuel cell stack (single cell), load (sequence of currents), air supply system (air compressor), fuel supply system (hydrogen tank), and power-efficiency block. The MATLAB/Simulink model is developed in such a way that one part behaves as an input model to the 3D-COMSOL model of the fuel cell system, whereas second part behaves as an output model that recovers the results obtained from the 3D-COMSOL of the fuel cell. This approach of power system modelling is useful to show the performance of high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell in much better and accurate way.