Impact of current ripples on the durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells based on two ageing datasets

Abstract

The dataset proposed two long term tests to evaluate the impact of the current ripples of the fuel cell durability. To be able to compare both degradations, the first ageing test is performed under steady-state conditions at constant current. This time series could be used as the durability reference. While the second long-term test is dedicated to degradation under rippled current with high frequency triangular perturbations, similar to the load imposed by a power converter. Thus, the second time series considers the actual degradation that could appear on an embedded system. Both tests are running on two fresh proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stacks composed of 5-cells during around 1000 h, to make degradation comparable. An in-lab test bench is used to monitor all the fluidic, thermal and electric parameters thanks to a National Instruments acquisition device and an in-lab designed Labview software. Some polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) are performed periodically during both durability tests. Both datasets provide to study the performance degradation along time for steady-state and rippled solicitations. These datasets can be directly used to validate some prognostics approaches and estimate the remaining useful lifetime (RUL).