Fuel Cell Library
The Modelica Fuel Cell Library (FCL) is used to model, simulate, analyze and control fuel cell design and operation, especially for PEMFC (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane) and SOFC (Solid Oxide) fuel cell systems.
It contains the essential components needed to research, design and configure fuel cell systems, including components, subsystems, templates and media.
The flexibility of the tool, the extended code, the graphical user interface and examples make FCL easy to get started and useful in a wide range of applications.
5kW Solid Oxide Fuel Cell system with pre-processing of natural gas
In the figure above natural gas, water and air are fed to a fuel preprocessor where the components are mixed, pre-heated and reformed into syngas suitable as fuel for the SOFC stack. The reformed gas is fed to the anode side of a 5 kW SOFC stack, hot air is fed to the cathode side. The stack in this examples contains three substacks with a total of 50 cells. Reforming reactions are taking place in the anode channel of each substack so that more hydrogen gas is generated. The hydrogen reacts with oxygen in the cell membrane, which gives rise to electrical current through the stack.
Benefits
- System and component design and simulation are concentrated in the same library, providing great work flow
- Easy-to-use in any fuel-cell application domain
- Well-suited for transient analysis and control design
- Handles reformate and other media
- Based on the Modelica open standard, enabling model re-use and easy integration with other libraries.
- Can be used in real-time simulation on e.g. HIL rigs
Applications
The Modelica Fuel Cell Library is a valuable tool for all industries and academia that work with fuel cell stacks and PEMFC and SOFC systems, including manufacturers, operators, consultancy companies and universities.
The main applications cove
- Power Generation
- Automotive (APU)
- Real-time applications
- Other applications such as aerospace and residential
Typical challenges are: system design, controls system verification (HIL/SIL), fast dynamics due to reactions and start-up sequence.
Both detailed systems modeling and real-time simulations are possible with the Fuel Cell Library.