Emulation of Thermal Energy Generation of Fuel Cell Stack via Hardware in Loop Simulation

For hydrogen-fueled cell vehicles, the optimal performance is maintained and long-time driving becomes possible when the heat generated by the chemical reaction during driving is properly emitted. The dynamically changing load and the subsequent heat value of the fuel cells during driving need to be properly controlled, but it is difficult to obtain actual measurement data because the market has not yet been fully developed. Heat generation is emulated with the proper combination of hardware and software by applying hardware in the loop simulation (HILS) for heat-generation characteristics with variations in the driving condition as well as static characteristics. The heatgeneration command of stack emulators is generated using the stack model. In this study, it is shown that the stack emulator properly follows the heat-generation command of the stack model, and the response characteristics for cooling are confirmed by connecting the cooling system to the stack emulator.