Thermal System Design of Inter-City Fuel Cell Electric Bus

In current scenario, demand for alternate energy is increasing due to depletion of fossil fuels and countries working to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Hydrogen being a cleaner fuel, many OEMs across the world started to work on various strategies like hydrogen combustion engine and fuel cell. Passenger vehicles like buses are at the lookout for fuel cell technology at faster rate than other commercial vehicles. In fuel cell vehicles, cooling system design is critical & complex since it includes fuel cell cooling, Power electronics cooling & battery cooling. In this paper, cooling system design of a Fuel cell electric bus for inter-city application is demonstrated. Radiators and Fans are designed considering overall heat rejection and Coolant inlet temperature requirements of components. Cooling system circuit and pump is decided to meet the coolant flow rate targets. Flow simulation and thermal simulation done with the help of simulation models built using software KULI to predict coolant flow rate and temperature across each component. Fuel cell circuits, Power electronic circuits, Battery circuits modelled in KULI with all components in the circuit. KULI predicted results signifies good co-relation with actual results.