Design and validation of a 2 kW-fuel cell test bench for subfreezing studies

This paper presents the design and validation of a 2 kW fuel cell test bench for subfreezing studies. The test bench is designed to study the influence of different operational parameters on the cold start of fuel cell. Thus, the effects of ambient temperature, gas and coolant flow rates, current density and fuel cell impedance can be investigated. For cold start experiments, the apparatus is designed to reproduce the environment of a fuel cell in a vehicle parked in a subzero environment. Therefore, the test bench is divided into two parts: the fuel cell, its coolant circuit and main sensors are located in a climatic chamber while the main part of the test bench is at room temperature. The different parts of the test bench are described and validation results are presented. The heat exchange between the fuel cell coolant circuit and the environment is computed using parameters estimation techniques. The power requested to heat the coolant circuit to a given temperature is computed.