Fuel Cell Lab
From WikIRI
The Fuel cell Control Laboratory is used for the validation and testing of control strategies of fuel cell based energy conversion systems and special electrical-machines based electrical energy generation. The facilities are equipped with a supervisor system which monitors necessary safety conditions regarding the use of gas leaks and power failure alarms management, automatic air extraction and safe shutdown routines for the test stations in case of emergency.
Fuel Cell Control Laboratory
The laboratory has five test stations, four of them are provided with Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Air inlets in order to work with fuel cells. The fifth one is used for special-machines electrical power generation. Each of the four test stations is equipped with the necessary sensors and actuators to be able to handle a fuel cell in a safe and automated way, as well as to modify the working conditions that affect a fuel cell (humidity, temperature, flow, etc.).
Depending on the type of experiment each station is designed with certain functionality. From the simplest monocell up to low and medium-power fuel cell stacks are characterized by the test station 1. Test station 2 is based on a 1200 Watts fuel cell and it is used on validation and connection of different electrical converters and energy-storage systems in order to validate control strategies and different levels of hybridization. The 3rd test station utilizes an environmental chamber as its main element, which controls relative humidity, temperature and oxygen concentration. This environmental chamber is capable of controlling the atmospheric conditions to evaluate the fuel cell system (a new-wide range of possibilities on the field of fuel cells tests). Built on a vertical panel, test station 4 has all the components of a standard automotive system based on fuel cells. This test station is used primarily to validate supervisor fault-tolerant control systems. The fifth and last station is a motor bench adapted to acquisition, actuation and control of the electric -generation special-machines variables.
