In recent years, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have become a promising
alternative to battery electric vehicles in medium- and heavy-duty on-road
applications, which specifically require long vehicle range, high payload
capacity, and fast refueling times. While FCEVs are more likely to meet these
requirements, they come with their own challenges of high upfront system cost,
reduced system efficiency at high load, on-board hydrogen storage system
packaging, and fuel cell system (FCS) durability. To address these challenges,
it is critical to ensure optimal propulsion system component sizing during the
concept phase as well as ensure optimal propulsion system energy management
during vehicle operation. In a previous publication, authors presented a
model-based approach for system sizing and optimization of FCEV propulsion
system components for a Class 8 long-haul application. In this study, the
authors have evaluated and optimized multiple advanced propulsion system energy
management control strategies to maximize the FCEV propulsion system efficiency
during vehicle operation.
Specifically, several energy management strategies were evaluated with the
primary objective of reducing hydrogen consumption through efficient power split
between FCS and high-voltage battery, while maintaining vehicle performance and
sustaining battery state of charge (SOC). A 1D multi-physics-based plant model
of the vehicle propulsion and thermal system was developed in GT-SUITE and
validated against vehicle test data. The validated plant model was then used for
model-in-loop (MiL) simulations to evaluate multiple control strategies such as
rule-based, equivalent consumption minimization strategy (ECMS), and dynamic
programming (DP), on real-world drive cycles.
