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US 9,178,233 B2Granted
Smart in-vehicle reactive recovery strategy
AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC
InventorsAndrew J. Maslyn, Puneet K. Sinha
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for determining when to operate a voltage recovery process for recovering a reversible voltage loss of a fuel cell stack in a fuel cell system. The method includes estimating an irreversible voltage loss of the fuel cell and an actual voltage of the fuel cell stack, and determining whether a difference between the estimated irreversible voltage loss and the estimated actual voltage exceed a threshold, and if so, the voltage recovery process is performed.
Claims20
A method for determining when to perform a stack voltage recovery process, said method comprising:
- providing a fuel cell stack in a fuel cell system, said fuel cell stack including at least one anode side and at least one cathode side, with a membrane-electrode assembly between each of the at least one anode side and the at least one cathode side;
- providing a water vapor transfer unit in a cathode input line of the fuel cell stack, said water vapor transfer unit being capable of humidifying cathode input air;
- a controller that is programmed with algorithms for:
- providing an estimate of an irreversible voltage loss of the fuel cell stack by determining a voltage that the stack is capable of producing;
- providing an estimate of an actual voltage of the fuel cell stack at a stack current density;
- determining a difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage;
- determining whether the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage is greater than a predetermined voltage threshold;
- performing the stack voltage recovery process when the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage loss is greater than the predetermined voltage threshold;
- and
- resetting a counter to zero once the stack voltage recovery process is complete.
7 more elements
A method for determining when to perform a stack voltage recovery process, said method comprising:
- providing a fuel cell stack in a fuel cell system, said fuel cell stack including at least one anode side and at least one cathode side, with a membrane-electrode-assembly between each of the at least one anode side and the at least one cathode side;
- providing a water vapor transfer unit in a cathode input line of the fuel cell stack, said water vapor transfer unit being capable of humidifying cathode input air;
- a controller that is programmed with algorithms for:
- providing an estimate of an irreversible voltage loss of the fuel cell stack by determining a voltage that the stack is capable of producing;
- providing an estimate of an actual voltage of the fuel cell stack at a current density;
- determining a difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage, wherein providing an estimate of the irreversible voltage loss, providing an estimate of the actual voltage and determining a difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage are performed over a current density output range of the fuel cell stack;
- determining whether the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage is greater than a first predetermined voltage threshold at 100% stack power and a second predetermined voltage threshold at about 25% stack power;
- performing the stack voltage recovery process when the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage loss is greater than either the first or second predetermined voltage thresholds at 100% stack power and 25% stack power;
- determining whether the estimated actual voltage at 100% stack power is less than a predetermined stack end of life voltage when the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage is not greater than either the first or second predetermined voltage threshold;
- and
- performing the stack voltage recovery process when the estimated actual voltage at 100% stack power is less than the predetermined stack end of life voltage.
8 more elements
A recovery system for determining when to perform a stack voltage recovery process, said recovery system comprising:
- a fuel cell stack in a fuel cell system, said fuel cell stack including at least one anode side and at least one cathode side, with a membrane-electrode-assembly between each of the at least one anode side and the at least one cathode side;
- a water vapor transfer unit in a cathode input line of the fuel cell stack, said water vapor transfer unit capable of humidifying cathode input air;
- a controller that is programmed with algorithms that provide:
- means for providing an estimate of an irreversible voltage loss of the fuel cell stack by determining a voltage that the stack is capable of producing;
- means for providing an estimate of an actual voltage of the fuel cell stack at a stack current density;
- means for determining a difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage;
- means for determining whether the difference between the irreversible voltage loss and the actual voltage is greater than a predetermined voltage threshold;
- and
- means for performing the stack voltage recovery process when the difference between the irreversible voltage loss at the actual voltage loss is greater than the predetermined voltage threshold.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.