Advanced Fuel Cell Health Monitoring System based on a Total Harmonic Distortion Analysis (THDA) methodology

摘要

The present work aims at showing the nonlinear behavior of a High Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (HTPEM) fuel cell under different mass transport problems using Total Harmonic Distortion Analysis (THDA) approach. This tool helps in online state of health monitoring and the controller design of a fuel cell stack may be modified based on the same. To analyze the state of health of operating stack, THDA system requires only the stack voltage or current to be measured. A low frequency current or voltage signal is impressed on the fuel cell stack and the resulting voltage or current signal is measured. The measured signal is processed with the use of a harmonic analyzer to determine any change in harmonic contents. From at least one change of the harmonic content of the impressed signal, the operational state viz., air starvation, hydrogen starvation of individual cells of the fuel cell stack is inferred. The anode and cathode critical issue viz., oxidant or fuel starvation may be inferred using frequency dependency study.