Development Of Fuel Cell Output Performance Simulation System

Due to the development of current world's economy, energy source conjuncture and environment pollution have attracted more and more attention. Many scientists all over the world are focusing on the researching for new energy sources. Fuel Cell, as a new type of power source, has been very popular in the field. However, fuel cell is very costly and difficult to be controlled well. And the hydrogen which acts as the fuel also takes a lot of manpower and money for its storing and transporting. Therefore, in order to reduce the developing cost of fuel cell application equipment, as well as to increase the developing benefit, it is significant and valuable to study, design and manufacture a fuel cell output performance simulated system.When the fuel cell is active, inside the stack there are both chemistry reaction processes and physics processes, such as gas-liquid two phase current, ions and electrons transportation processes and so on. Parameters of these processes are highly coupling with each other. This phenomenon makes it very difficult to find out an accurate mathematics model to describe the fuel cell output performance exactly. With fuel cell working principle, performance, large amount of experiment data and experience formulation, a simplified fuel cell model was reasoned out and was made as similar as the fuel cell performance.Based on the model, the correlative function of DSPIC30F4013 and LabView, lower computer software for DSP was developed, which can calculate the fuel cell output performance in real time. An upper computer LabView software interface, which can collect and show the system data more easily, was added to make the whole system more friendly useable.The hardware was composed of power supply, buck converter and DSP controller. The system is supplied by the 220V AC. The buck converter is controlled by the DSP controller through adjusting the duty cycle of the PWM signal, to make the buck converter give out the fuel cell performance. By completing all these steps, the function of system was achieved.Lastly, the hardware and the software of the system were tested. It proved that the model used in this thesis was exactly the same as the fuel cell performing in the normal working zone. It also proved that the system can simulate the fuel cell performance commendably. The feasibility and reliability of the hardware and the software were also proved at the same time. And the dynamic and static state characteristic of the system were tested and analyzed. Though many problems come up which caused the system failed to simulate all the fuel cell working states exactly, it is believed that after further researching, improving and optimizing, these problems would be solved successfully.