Abstract
Drop-and-pull transportation can repeatedly utilize tractors with different trailers and reduce costs, carbon emissions, and the number of tractors to purchase and use. Fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) possess high power and long drive endurance. These performance characteristics complement the performance requirements of drop-and-pull transportation of heavy loads and long mileage. This paper proposes a novel fuel-cell electric articulated vehicle featuring three power sources: fuel cell, power battery, and ultracapacitor. Then, based on the proposed vehicle, we expound on a highly efficient and flexible transport system. To compare economics and durability of fuel-cell electric trailers with two energy sources (i.e., fuel-cell-battery) and three energy sources, we developed and simulated a rule-based energy management strategy under driving conditions. The results indicate that, although similar levels of fuel economy and capacity degradation of the fuel cell occur for the proposed vehicle and its two-energy-source counterpart, the ampere–hour throughput of three-energy-source vehicles was 64% lower than that of two-energy-source vehicles, which indicates the introduction of the ultracapacitor in fuel-cell-battery electric articulated vehicles can offer significant protection to the power battery. This result shows that the three energy sources increase the service life of the energy system.
Highlights
Petroleum consumption has been continuously increasing owing to rapid social and economic developments worldwide
The high efficiency and the environmental friendliness of fuel cells can be exploited while simultaneously utilizing the high energy densities of power batteries or the high power densities of ultracapacitors. This approach improves the performance of the power system, increases the service life of fuel cells, and enhances vehicle driving endurance through regenerative braking. Considering these benefits, this paper proposes a novel type of fuel-cell-ultracapacitor-power battery hybrid electric articulated vehicle (Figure 1)
The integrated ultracapacitor-power battery hybrid system was treated as a power source that acts as a secondary energy source to regulate the power output by the fuel cell
Summary
Petroleum consumption has been continuously increasing owing to rapid social and economic developments worldwide. Vehicles powered by fuel cells do not cause pollution while achieving superior energy efficiency compared to conventional vehicles powered by fossil fuels They only require a short hydrogen refueling time. Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles possess strong adaptability to rapid load changes, high energy conversion efficiency, appropriate dynamic characteristics, low operating noise, and zero exhaust emissions [7]. These qualities perfectly satisfy the performance requirements (i.e., being able to transport heavy loads and travel long distances) of articulated vehicles, but research on the application of fuel cells to heavy commercial vehicles is relatively rare. The fuel economy and the durability of the fuel-cell electric articulated vehicles with three power sources were compared with those of their counterparts with two power sources
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