This paper describes the safety test simulation of electrical
shock of FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicles) on human. Since FCV operates with
high voltage, it is very dangerous to touch on or near the
conductive parts. It may hurt human even when conductive parts are
surrounded by protectors such as barriers or enclosures. Also
various modes of a vehicle, such as driving, idle and failure, can
affect electrical shock. It is difficult to carry out field
experiments about electrical shock for FCV because of many
combinations which depend on the operating voltages and the modes
of a vehicle. And electrical safety of FCV must be verified before
the manufacturing process. These are the main purposes of this
study.
MATLAB Simulink is the tool to conduct the simulation. All of
the electronic devices in an FCV and a human body were modeled to
measure current through human body when human touches on FCV. We
performed the simulation with respect to driving, idle and failure
mode. Result of this study shows that in case of the isolation
resistances between the electrical units and the electrical chassis
are less than 221.7 kΩ (DC) or 66.3 kΩ (AC), when human body is
modeled as 500 Ω resistances, it may cause severe damage on human.
The proposed simulation method can be used to establish the
standard value of isolation resistance and the standard value of
electrical shock on human.