Fuel-Cell-Powered HEV Design and Control

Excerpt

A hybrid vehicle implies a vehicle that is powered by more than one source of power. It can be an internal combustion engine and a battery, an ICE and fuel cell, and ICE and solar cells or fuel cell and batteries. The current trend of hybridization of internal combustion engines (ICE) is a result of the inefficiency of ICE. Spark ignition internal combustion engine, SI-ICE, is about 25–27% efficient, while compression ignition internal combustion engine, CI-ICE, (diesel) is 34–38% efficient [1, 2]. The remaining percentage of the input energy into ICE is expended in the form of heat loss to the coolant and exhaust, by convection, conduction, and radiation, and by combustion inefficiency. The electric drive has a higher efficiency around 90%, as such, it is justifiable to incorporate electric drive into the hybridized powertrain. With the increased use of electronics in cars for various applications, such as visual display of GPS, fuel economy, maintenance schedule and diagnostics, voice activation of devices and DVD players, etc., there is a need to use additional power sources to maintain this level of power demand without compromising the power required for ignition, and operate the electronic control unit (ECU), anti-brake systems (ABS), and the fuel injection units. …