trip. Taking into account

potential freezing operat-

ing conditions and given

this time-to-start estima-

tion, the fuel cell tempera-

ture management system

calculates the most appro-

priate time to start heating

the stack in order to re-

duce heat loss through

natural convection. When

the stack is started, its

natural exothermic reac-

tion heat is used as a self-

heating power source to

further increase the stack

temperature.

As the stack temperature

reaches a minimum value,

the fuel cell can be started

safely. The time to heat the

FC depends of the heating

element power and initial

FC temperature.

The energy efficiency of a

Fuel Cell-PHEV is directly

related the power flow

management between the

energetic components that

contribute its propulsion.

However, PEMFCs are sen-

sitive to various operating

conditions, such as ambi-

ent temperature, which is

widely considered as one

of the more critical among

those. Indeed, as water is

naturally produced during

PEMFC operation, freezing

can occur at low enough

temperatures, stopping or

outright damaging the fuel

cell. Although a systematic

purge is performed during

the PEMFC shutdown proc-

ess, it is difficult to remove

all water in the stack.

Hence, to preserve the fuel

cell’s life, specific attention

is required before using

the fuel cell again.

In this project, a global

strategy, which aims to

provide a method to man-

age the thermal behavior

of a PEMFC in the context

of an electric vehicle, is

proposed. The Energy Man-

agement System (EMS)

plays the role of power flow

supervisor and provides

the time-to-start the fuel

cell based on battery en-

ergy depletion during the

Summary

References

Kelouwani S., Henao N., Agbossou K., Dubé Y. and Boulon Loïc, " Two Layer Energy Management Archi-

tecture for a Fuel Cell HEV Using Road Trip Information ", IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology,

2012.

Henao N., Kelouwani S., Agbossou K. and Dubé Y., " PEMFCs Cold Startup Global Strategy for FC-PHEV ",

Journal of Power Sources, 2012.

Nilson Henao re-

ceived the B.S.

degree in electron-

ics engineering

from the Universi-

dad de los Llanos,

Villavicencio, Co-

lombia, in 2010.

He is currently

working toward the

M.S. degree with the Department of Elec-

trical and Computer Engineering, Univer-

sité du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-

Rivières, QC,Canada.

His current research interests include

fuel cell control and optimization and

energy management of hybrid electric

vehicles.

Thermal Fuel Thermal Fuel Thermal Fuel Thermal Fuel CellCellCellCell modelmodelmodelmodel

• To avoid start-up delays in

order to fulfill the vehicle

power request.

• Thermal management to

improve the energetic

efficiency.

• Provides the time-to-start

the fuel preventing the

battery over-discharge.

MAIN OBJECTIVES

PEM Fuel Cell Low Temperature Startup For Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Nilson Henao Supervisors: Prof. Kodjo Agbossou & Prof. Sousso Kelouwani