Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Model for Prognosis

The deployment at a large-scale of fuel cells will only occur if it is sufficiently competitive with other conventional energy generation solutions. Indeed, it is essential that these new technologies can provide acceptable performance and guarantee continuity of service for users. This involves the deployment of a robust, fault tolerant and ageing resilient systems. Fuel cell systems, by their technology, have behaviors that are difficult to apprehend. The nonlinear nature of the phenomena, the reversible or non-reversible character of the degradations, and the interactions between components and parameters make the modeling of aging a difficult task [2]. It is however necessary to develop a complete ageing model of a Fuel Cell system depending on the operating conditions in order to extend the lifetime of the system by setting appropriate control. Fault and degradation tolerant control, or by setting predictive maintenance. In this work, we present a mathematical model that will be used for fuel cell system prognosis, part of a global fault resilient approach. The model developed has been validated on experimental tests.