Open AccessStabilization Effect on Hydrogen Pressure for Fuel Cell Fueled by Sodium Tetrahydroborate With Multiple Power Converter Control
Author(s) -
Keisuke Tomoda,
Yuto Aisaka,
Taishi Fukuzawa,
Nobukazu Hoshi,
Noboru Katayama,
Atsuhiro Yoshizaki,
Keiichi Hirata
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
ieee transactions on industry applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.19
H-Index - 195
eISSN - 1939-9367
pISSN - 0093-9994
DOI - 10.1109/tia.2016.2627519
Subject(s) - power, energy and industry applications , signal processing and analysis , fields, waves and electromagnetics , components, circuits, devices and systems
A hydrogen generation system for fuel-cell (FC) hybrid electric vehicles fueled by powdery sodium tetrahydroborate (STEPS) has been proposed and developed. In this system, it is difficult to control the pressure of the hydrogen supplied to a FC stack. This problem may cause damage to the solid polymer electrolyte membrane of the FC stack or an imbalance in the generated electrical power. As a solution to this problem, a control method that uses multiple power converters, consisting of boost and bidirectional choppers, is applied to a prototype vehicle fueled by STEPS. The proposed control method can suppress rapid variation in the output power of the FC stack. This study shows that the proposed control method can improve the performance of hydrogen pressure control through test runs using a prototype vehicle and simulations using the derived model.