Abstract
Hydrogen-powered vehicles are emerging as a key source for a clean and sustainable mobility scenario. In particular, hydrogen technologies have a great potential for light mobility in urban areas, where traffic congestion may cause very high levels of local pollution. In this context, hybrid fuel cell/battery vehicles represent a promising solution, since they allow for extended driving range and short recharge time, which are two of the major concerns related to electric propulsion, in general. In this work, a new plug-in fuel cell electric bicycle concept is presented, where the on-board energy storage is realized by means of an innovative system integrating a battery pack with a metal hydride hydrogen tank. This solution allows to achieve very high performance in terms of riding range, which are unattainable with traditional battery electric bicycles. In particular, the hybrid energy storage system is conceived to provide an optimal thermal management of the two integrated components. The proposed design is developed on the basis of typical duty cycles acquired during on-road measurements. A prototype of the bicycle is then realized and bench-tested in order to assess design consistency and to evaluate its performances. The results show that the riding range of the new hydrogen-fuelled bicycle is about three times higher than the one for a similar electric bicycle.
Highlights
Hydrogen is capturing an unprecedented attention in industry as a versatile and sustainable energy carrier for a zero-emissions mobility scenario, and it is nowadays very much part of the political agenda of several Countries
These were performed by using a regenerative Battery Testing System (BTS), which uses the power profiles acquired during the design phase (Fig. 2) to emulate the actual vehicle operation
The battery State of Charge (SoC) remains fairly constant and always below 50% during the Urban Cycle A: in this case, the FC operates according to a Charge Sustaining – load following (CS-LF) mode
Summary
Hydrogen is capturing an unprecedented attention in industry as a versatile and sustainable energy carrier for a zero-emissions mobility scenario, and it is nowadays very much part of the political agenda of several Countries. Plug-in Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (PFCEVs) represents possibly an even more appealing solution than FCEVs, since they are generally more energy efficient, due to the possibility of component downsizing and optimization of control strategies [1,2]. The proposed energy storage solution consists of a small sized battery pack partially integrated into a MH tank for hydrogen storage In this way, the waste heat of the battery pack can be effectively transferred via conduction to the MH tank, promoting hydrogen desorption and enabling a suitable thermal management of the battery pack. The proposed design for the HyBike power unit and storage system is developed on the basis of power profiles acquired during road-tests for the original electric bicycle (e-bike) from which the new HyBike originates, and that are representative of typical operations. The aim of the experimental tests was to assess the correct operation of the power unit and to evaluate the suitability of the new energy storage system, in terms of hydrogen consumption and achievable riding range
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