Calling in all Electrical Engineers- Final Year Project help needed

[jkf1192]

Calling in all Electrical Engineers- Final Year Project help needed!

I needed some help from you guys regarding my Final year project.

Basically my project is about a hydrogen fuel cell that charges the batteries in cars, its a hybrid system. The fuel cell is PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell) and we have around 50 cells in stack.

The Fuel Cell we are using has an output of 1289W +/- 30W (@33A)(continuous), with an OCV of 60V and a Max current of 40A.

My job in the project is line conditioning... the idea is the DC current that comes out the fuel cell is either too high or is fluctuating i need to remove the fluctuations and bring it down to a constant value in order to charge the batteries.

I need some ideas like what device to use and how can the current be brought down to a specific value. Really appreciate your help :)

Thanks

 

[Windadct]

Let the FC charge a relatively large bank of capacitors, and then use a basic buck converter to regulate charging the batteries.

 

[jkf1192]

Let the FC charge a relatively large bank of capacitors, and then use a basic buck converter to regulate charging the batteries.

Thanks mate!

 

[Windadct]

Oh - depending on the buck circuit you may want a blocking diode in there so the batteries to not back feed the FC, or a contactor/ relay.

 

[Enthalpy]

Switching regulator, without the large capacitor bank.
The interesting part is that most battery technologies want a subtle detection of their end of charge, some want a limit on the charge current, and your fuel cell has probably a non-linear V-to-I function which you regulator must know or identify in order to extract the maximum power from them; you may adapt the methods used for Solar cells.