A simplified electrical model of small PEM fuel cell

Abstract

This research work is devoted to the development of an electrical and mathematical model able to simulate the static and transient phenomena in a small power polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEM) system. At present, there are different electrochemical models available to capture the steady state behavior by estimating the equilibrium voltage for a particular set of operating conditions. However, it is difficult to find models capable of describing transient phenomena. Dynamic models are very interesting from a practical point of view when the loads exhibit large variations. Some examples are powertrains of land-based vehicles or submarines. In that cases, the output power from the fuel cell shows large variations during acceleration and deceleration.