Performance improvement of fuel cell hybrid powered test railway vehicle

Abstract

There is growing demand for high energy efficiency railway vehicles which do not emit CO2 and NOx. To meet this demand, we have been developing railway vehicles powered by a hybrid configuration of fuel cells (FC) and batteries (Bat). In the previous development stage, we installed FC and power converters in passenger areas on the train, because of their size. In addition, acceleration of the vehicle was limited to that of a conventional DMU. For this paper, using passenger areas was not necessary, because downsized FC and power converters were installed under the vehicle floor. Furthermore, we improved tractive performance to reach that of a standard EMU, by increasing the power capacity of each FC and Bat.