GOALI: Estimation and Control of Water in PEM Fuel Cells

燃料电池(FC)系统的发电涉及其化学、流体、机械、热能、电气和电子等子系统的各种特性的相互作用。本研究主要研究描述非质子交换膜(PEM)燃料电池中反应物和水的动力学过程。虽然计算流体动力学模型已经被有效地用来描述这一过程并辅助燃料电池系统的设计，但它们对于大型堆栈来说难以校准，并且对于控制设计来说过于复杂。用于水管理的任何基于模型的控制方案必须充分权衡简单性，同时仍然能够预测蒸汽和液体传输的动态行为，从而导致电极泛滥。该项目的目标是提取两相、反应-扩散、空间分布水动力学的可提取模型，用于燃料电池的参数化和基于模型的控制。将采用离散化和模型降阶技术来揭示主导过程和参数。可辨识性和参数收敛问题的分析方法将与独特的实验方法相补充。该项目的结果将与NIST联合使用，以制定FCS中水的参数化和估算指南。这些模型将用于水管理项目的最后阶段，即预测、检测和避免洪水或脱水。燃料电池系统有望成为传统能源系统的一种有吸引力的替代方案，如燃气轮机和内燃机，因为它们更清洁、更有燃料效率。更重要的是，它们实现了减少对外国石油的依赖和加快向氢气经济过渡的目标。然而，在燃料电池技术成功商业化应用于交通运输和固定电力应用之前，必须解决增加这些系统的寿命和稳定性的迫切需要。该项目旨在通过开发和实施这些燃料电池系统的先进控制方法来应对这一挑战。

AbstractPower generation from Fuel Cell (FC) systems involve interplay of various attributesfrom its chemical, fluid, mechanical, thermal, electrical, and electronic subsystems. Thisstudy concentrates on the process that describes the reactant and water dynamics in aproton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. While computational fluid dynamic modelshave been gainfully used to represent this process and aid in the design of fuel cellsystems, they are difficult to calibrate for large stacks and too complex for control design.Any model-based control scheme used for water management must adequately trade-offsimplicity while still being able to predict the dynamic behavior of the vapor and liquidphase transport, and consequently electrode flooding. The goal of this project is to extracttractable models of the two-phase, reaction-diffusion, spatially distributed waterdynamics for parameterization and model-based control of fuel cells. Discretization andmodel order reduction techniques will be employed to reveal the dominant processes andparameters. Analytic methods for the identifiably and parameter convergence problemwill be supplemented with unique experimental methods. The results from this projectwill be used jointly with NIST to develop guidelines for parameterization and estimationof water in FCs. The models will be used in the last phase of the project for watermanagement, namely, predicting, detecting, and avoiding flooding or de-hydration.Fuel cell systems promise to be an attractive alternative to traditional energy systemssuch as gas turbines and internal combustion engines, as they are cleaner and more fuelefficient.More importantly, they enable the goals of reduced dependence on foreign oiland ease the transition to a hydrogen based economy. However, before the successfulcommercialization of Fuel Cell technology in transportation and stationary powerapplications, a critical need for increasing the life-time and robustness of these systemshas to be addressed. This project seeks to address this challenge by developing andimplementing advanced control methodologies for these fuel cell systems.