Thermal Control for Electric Vehicle Based on the Multistack Fuel Cells

Pollution, global climate change, and the scarcity of fossil fuel reserves have forced the automotive industry to step up its research efforts on clean fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In fact, these systems can be considered relatively pollution-free systems, with zero greenhouse gas emissions and higher efficiency than traditional vehicles. FCEVs typically use two sources of energy, fuel cells (FCs) and supercapacitors (SCs). One of the main issues with FCs is keeping the temperature between 60 and 90 °C. Herein, a strategy for controlling the temperature of the FC is proposed. Its objective is to achieve two main goals: the first is reducing the time and energy required to reach the optimum temperature, and the second is maintaining the temperature of the FC in the ideal range during operation. A Simulink/MATLAB model is established to determine the efficiency of the proposed system. The results show that at low ambient temperatures, the FC can be heated within 6 min, moreover the system allows cooling the FC and keeping its temperature in the ideal range.