A method for distinguishing the cause of voltage losses in a fuel cell device includes: a) Detection of a quasi-stationary operation of the fuel cell device, b) Acquisition and storage of a measured current-voltage characteristic curve with the current values and the voltage values of a fuel cells stack of the fuel cell device, c) Use of a PtOx model to determine PtOx voltage losses and calculation of a corrected current-voltage characteristic curve for the PtOx-free and normally humidified fuel cell stack, and d) Comparison of the current-voltage characteristic curves determined in step b) and in step c) and detection of an at least partially dried-out fuel cell stack if the measured current-voltage characteristic curve runs below the corrected current-voltage characteristic curve. A fuel cell device and a motor vehicle comprising a fuel cell device are also provided.

Systems and methods configured to receive a set of real-time flight conditions and a user-selected objective function. The user-selected objective function is one of a plurality of objective functions. The systems and methods determine, with an emissions tuning model, one of a plurality of sets of fuel cell operating conditions based on the set of real-time flight conditions and the user-selected objective function. The systems and methods are configured to control a fuel cell assembly operating parameter according to the determined one of the plurality of sets of fuel cell operating conditions.

A propulsion system including: a fuel cell assembly comprising a fuel cell, the fuel cell defining an outlet positioned to remove output products from the fuel cell and a fuel cell assembly operating condition; a combustion section that includes a combustor configured to receive a flow of aviation fuel from the aircraft fuel supply and further configured to receive the output products from the fuel cell; and a controller comprising memory and one or more processors, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the propulsion system to perform operations including: determining data indicative of at least one of an enthalpy or a composition of the output products from the fuel cell; and modifying the flow of aviation fuel from the aircraft fuel supply to the combustor based on the at least one of the enthalpy or the composition of the output products.

A method for controlling a climate test chamber for conditioning air and a test chamber includes a fuel cell assembly exposed to at least one physical test condition in a test space. The fuel cell assembly includes at least one electrochemical fuel cell having an anode compartment and a cathode compartment each having a feed opening for introducing reactants and a discharge opening for discharging waste products of the fuel cell assembly. The fuel cell assembly is operated in the test space, and a fuel gas and an oxidation gas is fed to the fuel cell assembly as reactants. The test space is supplied with conditioned supply air and exhaust air is discharged from the test space by an air conditioning and ventilation system. An oxygen concentration is determined using a sensor and a controller controls the oxygen concentration.

Methods and apparatus for detecting electrical short circuits in fuel cell stacks are provided. The methods involve supplying a reactant and an inert gas to a fuel cell stack and measuring the open circuit voltage of fuel cell assemblies in the fuel cell stack. The sensitivity of the methods can be adjusted to detect an electrical short circuit having a resistance at or below a particular threshold short-circuit resistance value, by using a suitable reactant concentration in the method. The methods can include determining a set-point reactant concentration that can be used to detect an electrical short circuit having a resistance at or below a particular threshold short-circuit resistance value.

Systems and methods for simulating gas flow dynamics of a real hydrogen fuel cell system using a computer, wherein the real hydrogen fuel cell system includes a gas container volume network having gas container volumes interconnected by gas transport lines. The method includes defining volume element and flow channel classes, defining a plurality of volume instances and a plurality of flow channel instances, for each flow channel instance, creating a first interconnection representation that defines a source container volume and a destination container volume for the flow channel instance, wherein the first interconnection representation mimics a portion of the gas container volume network of the real hydrogen fuel cell system, and simulating, using the first interconnection representation, a thermodynamic state for each of the volume instances, the thermodynamic state representing thermodynamic parameter(s) in each container volume of the gas container volume network of the real hydrogen fuel cell system.

A linear time varying model predictive control (LTV-MPC) framework is developed for degradation-conscious control of automotive polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems. A reduced-order nonlinear model of the entire system is derived first. This nonlinear model is then successively linearized about the current operating point to obtain a linear model. The linear model is utilized to formulate the control problem using a rate-based MPC formulation. The controller objective is to ensure offset-free tracking of the power demand, while maximizing the overall system efficiency and enhancing its durability. To this end, the fuel consumption and the power loss due to auxiliary equipment are minimized. Moreover, the internal states of the fuel cell stack are constrained to avoid harmful conditions that are known stressors of the fuel cell components.

The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for fuel cell regeneration after degradation.

The present application relates to a porous body quality inspection apparatus and a method for inspecting quality of a porous body, and according to one aspect of the present application, there is provided a porous body quality inspection apparatus comprising a contact resistance measuring part of a porous body with a gas diffusion layer, a pressurizing part for pressurizing a pressure-sensitive discoloration base material on the porous body, an image mapping part for calculating a contact area between the pressure-sensitive discoloration base material and the porous body, a transporting part for transporting the porous body and the pressure-sensitive discoloration base material, and an operation part for performing an operation of an interfacial contact resistance between the porous body and the gas diffusion layer.

A dimensional fluid mapping system. An internal fluid device having one or more internal cavities configured to contain a fluid is disclosed. The one or more internal cavities have one or more internal features. The internal fluid device has a first side and a second side opposing the first side. A heating device is configured to apply heat to the first side when driven with a multifrequency excitation signal including first and second frequencies. A thermal measuring device is configured to record thermal signals emitted from the second side. A controller is configured to receive the thermal signals from the thermal measuring device and to generate a dimensional thermal map of one or more internal features of one or more internal cavities and/or an internal fluid distribution of the fluid contained in the one or more internal cavities in response to the thermal signals.