Dynamic thermal modeling of PEMFC based on fractional order theory

Abstract

The temperature distribution in PEMFC is recognized to be an important factor for the fuel cell's stability and efficiency. Because there is a typically fractional relationship between the temperature and the heat diffusion in semi-solid system like fuel cell, the theory of fractional order calculus is firstly adopted to describe the dynamic thermal model of PEMFC, in which the method of solving the fractional differential equations is studied. The simulation results at varying load currents show that the fractional order thermal model can describe the stack temperature variation more accurately than the integer order.