Thermal System design of Inter-City Fuel Cell Electric Bus

In the current scenario, demand for alternate energy is increasing due to depletion of fossil fuels and countries commitment towards carbon neutrality by 2050. Hydrogen is considered as one of the cleaner fuels and many OEMs across the world started to work on various strategies like hydrogen combustion engine and fuel cell. Passenger vehicles like Buses are at the lookout for fuel cell technology at faster rate than other commercial vehicles. In fuel cell vehicles, cooling system design is critical & complex since it includes fuel cell cooling, Power electronics cooling & battery cooling. In this paper cooling system design of a Fuel cell electric bus for inter-city application is demonstrated. Radiators and Fans are selected based on the overall heat rejection and Coolant inlet temperature requirements of components. Cooling system circuit and pump is decided to meet the coolant flow rate targets. Flow simulation and thermal simulation done using simulation models using software KULI to predict coolant flow rate and temperature through each component. Fuel cell circuits, Power electronic circuits modelled in KULI with all components in the circuit. KULI predicted results signifies good co-relation with actual results.