Aging of Fuel Cell Systems for Heavy Duty Trucks – Mitigation Strategies and How to Validate Efficiently During the Development

Authors

M. Thewes, D. van der Put, FEV Group GmbH, Aachen; M. Walters, D. Lückmann, A. Schloßhauer, Y. Liu, A. Balazs, A. Müller, R. Beykirch, D. Thien, S. Tews, FEV Europe GmbH, Aachen; J. Kexel, F. Herkenrath, S. Pischinger, RWTH Aachen University:

Year

2024

Print Info

Production/Publication ÖVK

Summary

The long-term reliability and durability of fuel cell systems is important for the successful application to heavy duty commercial vehicles, which are expected to least around 25,000 hours.

Efficient and effective development methodologies for such high durability are therefore of high interest for manufactures of heavy-duty vehicles and fuel cell systems and stacks. Traditional accelerated stress tests often fail to accurately reflect the real-world ageing effects of fuel cells due to their focus on isolated stressors such as start-stop cycles and load transients. FEV developed a methodology to derive an accelerated durability test based on a fuel cell degradation model. This fuel cell degradation model has been implemented into a simulation environment to enable maximizing durability with the help of an adopted operation strategy in combination with tailoring and sizing of the components of the propulsion system.

The focus of this paper is on demonstrating the outcomes of such approach based on a 40-t long-haul fuel cell truck to showcase the tailored methodology. The findings confirm current industry trends towards bigger fuel cell system, identifying a 300+ kW fuel cell system and a 120 kWh battery as the ideal combination to satisfy all vehicle requirements even after 25.000 h, while maintaining the lowest delta total cost of ownership.

ISBN

978-3-9504969-3-2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.62626/91ta-rpwn Copy link