SIZING OF PEM FUEL STACK AND HYDROGEN TANK FOR 2010 CHEVROLET VOLT

Usman Asad Kate Gleason College of Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York 14623 Email: jrkeme@rit.edu ABSTRACT With increasing interest in developing eco-friendly cars, the use of hydrogen fuel cells in automotive applications in being researched by leading car manufacturers around the world. PEM fuel cells are most suited for such applications. Here, a brief sizing and simulation is carried out for the PEM fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank for a 2010 Chevrolet Volt. PROBLEM STATEMENT The purpose of this report to establish the sizing of fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank for a 2010 Chevrolet Volt. The tank size must be sufficient to support travel up to 350km. The fuel cell stack must be able to generate enough power to achieve the EPA US06 Drive Cycle, also called Supplemental Federal Test Procedure (SFTP) A number of assumptions are made to simply the problem. Power generated by the fuel cell is assumed to be instantly available at the wheel ignoring the dynamic operation of the balance of plant. No secondary battery power input is considered. The dimensions, mass and drag coefficient for the car is available. The fuel cell considered is Balland Mark V PEMFC @ 70C. Performance and polarization data for the fuel cell is available. Cd air M AR Vel Acc Eoc V A i m,n Drag coefficient Air Density (Kg/m3) Mass of the car (kg) Car surface area (m2) Velocity of the car (m/s) Acceleration of the car (m/s2) Open circuit voltage (V) Voltage of the cell (V) Anode stoichiometry Slope of tafel line (V) Current density (mA/cm2) Constants for mass transport losses NOMENCLATURE Nc Number of cells Act Active area of fuel cells (m2) P Pressure of hydrogen tank (Psi) Vol Volume of the hydrogen tank (m3) Pc Power demand by car (KW) Pe Power generated by fuel cells stack

MODELING & SIMULATION The power demand of the car is given by the velocity times the sum of the drag force and the mass acceleration force (equations 1 and 2). This power demand must be met by the fuel cell. Velocity and acceleration are obtained from the US06 Drive Cycle data shown in fig. 1. Hence the power requirements over time are easily established and plotted in fig. 2 = 0.5 . . . . 2 + . acc [1] = . [2] The polarization curve for the fuel cell can be obtained by equation 3. All parameters for eqn 3 are known; so the polarization can be easily plotted. Figure 3 shows the polarization curve of the Balland Mark V system. The power generated by the fuel cell is given by equation 4. In equation 4, both the number of number of cells and the cell active area are our design variables. = ln() = . . [3] [4]

The product of the number of cells and cell active area will determine the operating point of the fuel cell on the polarization curve at different times in the drive cycle. These must be selected such that the power generated by the fuel cell exceeds the maximum power required during the drive cycle. The fuel cell must remain within the usable operating range without having any mass-transport losses. Operating at lower current densities and higher voltages favor efficiency and hence better fuel efficiency; however, this will 1

lead to larger stack size and hence, higher costs. Figure 2 shows that the maximum power required by the vehicle in the drive cycle is 83.8 KW. However this power requirement is a sharp peak in figure 2. In general, for normal safe driving, power requirement is not this high.

FIGURE 1 . US06 DRIVE CYCLE

FIGURE 2. POWER REQUIREMENTS OF VEHICLE IN DRIVE CYCLE Once the product of the number of cells and cell active area is established, the sizing of the FC stack must be carried out for determine a reasonable balance between the number of cells and active area. The dimensional constraints of the car must be taken into account assuming the FC stack is to be fitted in the hood of the car along with an electric motor, auxiliary systems and so on. The width of the car is 1790mm; assuming a thickness of around 10mm/cell, with decent clearance, we have a constraint of around 150 cells. Another important factor is manufacturing limitations. A number of simulations are carried out and using trial and error, the sizing of the fuel cell is finalized. The number of cells used is 150 and the area of the cell is 400mm x 400mm. The plots below show the power generated by the stack, voltage and current density during the drive cycle. The peak power produced by the fuel cell is 125 KW at a current density of 941 mA/cm2. As stated before the peak power requirement of the vehicle is 83.8KW. At this point, the fuel cell operates at a voltage of 0.73 V and current density of 480mA/cm2, which shows that the fuel cell operates at reasonable efficiency even at high power. To some extent the selection of fuel cell power is not purely a technical decision. It is also a marketing/consumer based decision. Some consumers will prefer high powered car which will have a better top speed and acceleration. For others, the cost of the vehicle may be a greater factor. For reference, the actual Chevrolet Volt is equipped with an 111KW electric motor as well as a 60KW gasoline fueled engine.

TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF FUEL-FUEL STACK SIZING Number of Cells Active area of Cell: Peak Power Produced: Peak Power Required 140 400mm x 400mm 125 KW 83.8 KW

FIGURE 3. POLARIZATION CURVE AND POWER OUTPUT OF FUEL CELL Hydrogen consumption is given by equation 5. For the complete drive cycle, total hydrogen consumption can be computed by integrating over time. Total distance travelled in calculated by integrating velocity over time and comes out to be 12.8 km. Using this, we can calculate the total mass of hydrogen required to travel 350km. 2 = 1.05 108

1 [5]

Once the total mass of hydrogen required is determined, the sizing of the tank itself can be carried out considering it must be designed to fit comfortably in the trunk of the car. The width of the Chevy Volt is 1.790 m and the total truck space is 0.3m3. The sizing and of the tank is done by trial and error using these dimensional constraints. Using a smaller tank will increase available trunk volume while increasing the tank pressure, and thereby thickness, weight and cost. In the design iterations, an effort was made to the keep the tank pressure low at the expense of trunk space in order to reduce tank cost and weight. The final tank specifications are shown in Table 2. The tank occupies roughly half of the trunk space and operates at a reasonable pressure of around 3000 psi. TABLE 2. SUMMARY OF HYDROGEN TANK SIZING Length of Tank Radius of Tank: Volume of Tank: Pressure: Mass of Hydrogen stored: 1300 mm 200 mm 146 L 3080 psi 2.52 kg

CONCLUSION The sizing of fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank is carried out by employing a number of assumptions to simplify the problem. The fuel cell stack was sized to achieve the performance requirements of the drive cycle. Both the fuel cell stack and the hydrogen tank were sized to meet the dimensional constraints of the vehicle.