A review on fuel cell electric vehicle powertrain modeling and simulation

ABSTRACT

In parallel to the developments in the fuel cell and hydrogen production, storage, and delivery technologies, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have started to take more attention; and several commercial products and prototypes have been already released. Modeling and simulation are important techniques to choose the design and operating parameters of the powertrain components of these vehicles and thus enhance their performance. This paper discusses, compares, and synthesizes different methods used for modeling vehicle dynamics and main powertrain components (fuel cell system, hydrogen storage unit, battery, transmission, electric motor, energy management system) as well as the drive cycle and life cycle simulations for FCEV. Rule-based and metaheuristic energy management methods for FCEV are discussed. Recent papers on the modeling and simulation of FCEV are categorized according to the powertrain components and methods used, and briefly discussed. The findings of this paper guide the researchers to select the optimum FCEV powertrain component types and their technical properties through modeling and simulation methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Fuel cell vehicle
• powertrain modeling
• simulation
• energy management
• life cycle

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by Dokuz Eylul University’s Scientific Research Projects with the project number [2020.KB.MLT.012].

Notes on contributors

Eda Alpaslan

Eda ALPASLAN received her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, in 2020. She is currently pursuing her PhD. education at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the same university. Her current research interests include electric and fuel cell hybrid vehicles, hydrogen technologies, and vehicle design, modelling and simulation.

Sera Ayten Çetinkaya

Sera Ayten Çetinkaya received her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, in 2020. She is currently pursuing her M.Sc. education at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the same university. Her current research interests include mathematical modelıng of fuel cell systems and hydrogen storage systems.

Ceren Yüksel Alpaydın

Dr. Ceren Yüksel Alpaydın received her B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Usak University in 2014 and has completed M.Sc. degree in 2016 from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University on the thermal management of photovoltaic panels. She received her Ph.D. in the field of experimental and numerical investigation of hydrogen production from the same university. Her current research interests include renewable energy technologies, hydrogen production and nuclear energy.

S. Aykut Korkmaz

S. Aykut KORKMAZ received the Bachelor’s degree in Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, in 2009 and has completed M.Sc. degree from the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dokuz Eylül University on the fuel cell technologies for maritime applications and simulation, in 2017. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the same department. He has been working as research assistant at Faculty of Maritime since 2014. His current research interest includes renewable energy systems and mathematical modeling of fuel cell hybrid systems of maritime applications.

Mustafa Umut Karaoğlan

Dr. Mustafa Umut Karaoğlan received his B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Yildiz Technical University. He received his M.Sc. from the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dokuz Eylül University on the electric vehicle design and simulation. He earned his Ph.D. in the field of simulation of the powertrain for fuel cell vehicle from the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dokuz Eylül University. Dr. Karaoğlan served as research assistant from 2012 to 2021 on hybrid vehicle technologies & automotive engineering at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey. Currently Dr. Karaoğlan is working as Assistant Professor at Department of Mechanical Engineering in Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkeyfa Umut Karaoğlan received his B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Yildiz Technical University. He received his M.Sc. from the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dokuz Eylül University on the electric vehicle design and simulation. He earned his Ph.D. in the field of simulation of the powertrain for fuel cell vehicle from the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dokuz Eylül University. Dr. Karaoğlan served as research assistant from 2012 to 2021 on hybrid vehicle technologies & automotive engineering at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey. Currently Dr. Karaoğlan is working as Assistant Professor at Department of Mechanical Engineering in Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey.

C. Ozgur Colpan

Prof. Dr. Can Özgür Çolpan is a full professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Dokuz Eylül University. He received his PhD degree from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada, in 2009. He has conducted research in the field of fuel cells and hydrogen and the mathematical modeling of integrated energy systems. He has worked as conference chairman, technical chair and organizing committee member in many conferences. In 2019, he won the Turkish Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award (TUBA-GEBIP) and METU Professor Dr. Mustafa N. Parlar Education and Research Foundation’s Research Encouragement Award

K. Emrah Erginer

Asist. Prof. Dr. K. Emrah Erginer graduated from Istanbul Technical University - Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 2000. He has worked in shipping companies as technical manager and DPA for 2 years. In 2010, he completed his PhD (Maritime Economics and Administration) at Dokuz Eylul University and still working in Maritime Education Department at Maritime Faculty. He founded the solar boat community at DE University and still works there as a consultant. He is interested in safety, security and environmental management on ships, ISO standards for ships and recreational boats, energy efficiency and related sensors and instruments/measurements on ships, computational fluid dynamics and propeller design.

Aytaç Gören

Dr. Aytaç Gören received his Ph.D. in 2007 from Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey. He has been in Solar Energy and Control Laboratories of FH-Rosenheim, Germany and Laboratory of Interchangeable Manufacturing and Industrial Metrology of TU-Vienna, Austria as invited researcher. He chaired WELMO ’17, took part as organizing committee member in IFAC DECOM-TT 2007 and TOK’11. He has been in Innovation Technologies Laboratory of Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France as guest professor in years 2019 and 2021. Dr. Gören is the founder and has been leading the Solaris Solar Car Projects since 2004 and Automatic Control / Robotics Labs of ME Dept. of DEU since 2012. His current research interests include solar cars, photovoltaics, EVs, mobile robots, ANNs, high efficient BLDCMs, BLDCDs and polymer matrix composites.