Efficient development of fuel cell and electrolyzer applications requires simulation models of adequate fidelity. These models enable you to perform design space exploration, analyze design tradeoffs, and help inform control systems development.
With MATLAB®, Simulink®, and Simscape Electrical™, you can:
- Model fuel cells and hydrogen electrolyzers
- Develop fuel cell system architectures
- Implement control systems
- Integrate fuel cells and electrolyzers into larger electrical systems
Simulink and Simscape™ enable you to model and simulate fuel cells and electrolyzer systems using a physics-based approach with ready-made library components or a data-driven approach with modeling tools. You can:
- Explore different configurations for fuel cell stacks and electrolyzers
- Model multidomain physics effects and balance-of-plant components for regulating hydrogen gas and air flow, water transport, and heat generation
- Assess electrothermal behaviors to support electrical system and thermal management system design
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Learn More
- Generate Mapped Fuel Cell from a Spreadsheet – Documentation
- Making Oxygen from the Martian Atmosphere with Electrolyzer – News Story
- Designing Fuel Cell Systems Using System-Level Design – White Paper
Examples
Control systems play a significant role in ensuring the safe, durable, and efficient operations of fuel cell and electrolyzer systems. With Simulink and Simscape, you can rapidly prototype control design and generate code for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and deployment.
- Design electro-thermal control algorithms for current and voltage regulation, humidity regulation, pressure management, water management, and thermal management
- Generate readable, optimized C/C++ or HDL control code for fuel cell models
- Generate code for the plant model
- Perform real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing to avoid costly damages to the fuel cell hardware prototype
- Deploy control code to embedded processors or FPGA/SOC devices
“Fuel cell systems need to be reliable and efficient. We accomplish this by using MathWorks tools to rapidly develop and simulate our control algorithms before trying them on a system. We don't have time to investigate our algorithms with C or C++. Fortunately, MATLAB lets us test our ideas with just a few lines of code. It saves a lot of time and moves us toward our goal of creating a commercially viable onsite energy system."
Rebecca Dinan, Plug Power
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Use MATLAB and Simulink to integrate fuel cells as the power source for a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) or integrate electrolyzers into a green hydrogen production system.
- Model different electrical loads driven by the fuel cell and different energy sources driving the electrolyzer
- Test the dynamic response of fuel cells or the electrolyzer against the larger electrical system
- Perform system integration studies to inform component selection, design control and diagnostic algorithms, and optimize configurations of the fuel cells or electrolyzers
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Learn More
- Ford Motor Company and Pi Technology Develop Ford Focus Fuel Cell Vehicle Systems with Model-Based Design and Automatically Generated Production Code – Cutomer Story
- Electrifying Commercial Vehicles with Hydrogen Fuel Cells – Newsletter
- Simulating Fuel Cell Hybrid Bus Technology at the University of Delaware – Customer Story
- Automotive Research Lab at Penn State Gives Students Practical Hardware-in-the-Loop Experience – Customer Story
Videos
- Fuel Cell Virtual Vehicle Models for Fuel Economy, Performance, and Thermal Analysis (24:08)
- Hydrogen Is the New Diesel: Electrifying Heavy-Duty Vehicles with Nuvera Fuel Cells (19:06)
- Developing a Racing Catamaran Powered by Hydrogen (14:13)
- Fuel Cell Integration for Electrified Propulsion (44:54)
- Multi-Stack Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Modeling and Applications (19:10)