Assessment of impact of parameters of passenger transport powertrain based on hydrogen fuel cell on the cruising range

Introduction (problem statement and relevance). The global transition to the low-carbon economy stimulates development of hydrogen transport. The key advantage of hydrogen fuel cells (FC) over lithium-ion batteries is high specific energy, which potentially extends the cruising range and increases the loading capacity of vehicles. The relevance of the paper is determined by the necessity to optimize hybrid vehicle FC-based powertrains in order to increase their energy efficiency, which depends heavily on the system configuration.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the impact of a hybrid fuel cell based powertrain and traction battery configuration on the vehicle cruising range under conditions of the urban and intercity (highway) driving cycles.

Methodology and research methods. In order to achieve the purpose, a mathematical model of vehicle driving is developed, which includes the powertrain power balance and models of the following components: proton exchange membrane fuel cell, traction battery and hydrogen storage system. The simulation is conducted for the urban and intercity routes with variation of the key powertrain parameters: fuel cell maximum power, traction battery capacity and weight of the hydrogen being transported.

Scientific novelty and results. It is found that the optimum powertrain configuration depends crucially on the route type. For the urban cycle, the maximum cruising range (1433 km) is achieved in case of a configuration with a large-capacity traction battery (40 A·h) and low-power FC (40 kW). For the intercity cycle, the key is to increase the power of fuel cells (up to 160 kW), which allows lowering of requirements for the traction battery and increasing of the weight of the hydrogen transported, providing the cruising range of up to 833 km.

The scientific novelty consists in the method of increasing the energy efficiency of a hydrogen vehicle, taking into account the impact of the weight of components when analyzing various powertrain configurations.

Practical significance. The research results allow development of more efficient configurations of powertrains for hydrogen transport optimized for specific operating conditions. This promotes powertrain weight decrease, cruising range extension and, as a result, increase in economic feasibility and environmental efficiency of hydrogen vehicles.

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