Design and Simulation Tools for Hybrid Fuel Cell Trains

Diesel multiple units are conventionally used as an affordable solution on for railway lines in which electrification is not economically justified. An improved sustainability of this kind of railway vehicles can be obtained with battery operated trains. Considering constraints imposed by the current level of storage technology, adoption of hybrid solutions with hydrogen fuel cells represents a feasible solution to further improve autonomy and performances of trains without any compromise in terms of reliability. In this work authors present a model devoted to preliminary simulation and sizing of this kind of systems. Model is verified on near to realistic simulation scenarios to understand potentialities and drawbacks of proposed solutions.