Degraded Mode Operation of Multi-Stack Fuel Cell Systems

Multi stack fuel cell systems provide higher performances and reliability than single stack fuel cell systems. The aim of this paper is to investigate the degraded mode operation of multi- stack fuel cell systems upon the loss of one of its stack. The different power allocation strategies impact the behavior of the multi-stack fuel cell system. Fuel consumption results on a driving cycle acquired on the Hydrogen Research Institute's (HRI) test vehicle also depends on the chosen allocation strategy. The simulations have been conducted in MATLAB - Simulink. The results show that with a simple reconfiguration of the system the multistack system can still complete the driving cycle. The fuel consumption results during normal and degraded mode operation are compared and show acceptable efficiency loss during degraded mode operation.