Analysis for the Effect of Inverter Ripple Current on Fuel Cell Operating Condition

By R. Gemmen. Heat Transfer, 2001

246 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The effect of inverter ripple current on fuel cell stack performance and stack lifetime remains uncertain. This paper provides a first attempt to examine the impact of inverter load dynamics on the fuel cell. Since reactant utilization is known to impact the mechanical state of a fuel cell, it is suggested that the varying reactant conditions surrounding the cell govern, at least in part, the lifetime of the cells. This paper investigates these conditions through the use of a dynamic model for the bulk conditions within the stack, as well as a one-dimensional model for the detailed mass transport occurring within the electrode of a cell. These two independent modeling approaches help to verify their respective numerical procedures. In this work, the inverter load is imposed as a boundary condition to the models. Results show the transient behavior of the reactant concentrations within the stack, and of the mass diffusion within the electrode under inverter loads with frequencies between 30 Hz and 1250 Hz.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/766fba6d0bf583a7688ef3b1faa98c7fb7f4c96a

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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Citations in the corpus

Power Electronics and Control Techniques for Maximum Energy Harvesting in Photovoltaic Systems (2012, background): “While any disturbance affecting the PV current has only a detrimental effect in terms of MPPT efficiency, current ripple significantly affects the fuel consumption and life span of FCs [4].”
Mitigation of Low-Frequency Current Ripple in Fuel-Cell Inverter Systems Through Waveform Control (2013, background): “As pointed out in [2]–[8], the various disadvantages include: 1) significant wastage in fuel consumption [2], [3]; 2) oxygen starvation leading to reduced maximum power generation [4], [5]; 3) poor dynamic response [6]; 4) nuisance tripping at heavy load [7]; and 5) shortening of fuel cell’s lifetim”
Fuel cell high-power applications (2009, background): “25 kHz, and the FC ripple current must be lower than around 5% of rated value, to ensure minor impact to the FC conditions [54], [55].”