Simulation-based study on the control strategy for PEMFC thermal management system

Abstract A control-oriented mechanism model and the corresponding control strategy for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) thermal management are developed based on internal model control (IMC). Additionally, a pre-stabilizing controller is introduced to improve the convergence of the proposed IMC-based strategy. The test results show that the IMC-based control strategies perform better responsiveness and robustness than the conventional PID-based strategy. The introduced pre-stabilizing controller is found to further improve the convergence to the target. Finally, it is also worth mentioning that the proposed IMC-based strategy and the corresponding optimized strategy achieve 46.8 % and 73.0 % lower ITAE of stack inlet temperature under dynamic load variation compared to the PID-based strategy, respectively, indicating their stronger dynamic tracking performance and the effective amelioration brought by the introduced pre-stabilizing controller, which presents practical value in PEMFC thermal management.