Pre-Sizing Approach of a Fuel Cell-Battery Hybrid Power System with Interleaved Converters

Abstract

This paper proposes a design methodology that is dedicated to improving the concept of a modular hybrid power chain that uses interleaved converters. The approach involves optimising the system under multi-physical constraints, where the number of cells in the interleaved converters is considered as a key modular parameter. The methodology uses analytical models to strike a balance between computation time and result accuracy. This compromise is indispensable to the construction of a smart design approach under multi-physical constraints, such as electric, efficiency, volume, and thermal constraints. The proposed approach has been applied to a hybrid fuel cell and battery power system for automotive applications; the goal is to obtain a global optimal architecture chain by optimising the number of interleaved converter cells and by determining appropriate power electronics components and the optimal sizing of sources. This constitutes the primary step for providing an effective pre-design support tool for considering architecture modularity, facilitating the use of new technologies in the early design stage. The results showed that the interleaving concept allows for better flexibility in respecting the design constraints to improve the design of hybrid power systems. The analysis also highlights the current limitations and performance of the optimisation method and suggests new areas for future work.

Influence of Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors in Interleaved Converters Sizing for a Fuel-Cell Power Architecture

“…The pre-sizing methodology, presented in Figure 5, involves an optimization process with multi-physical constraints. It follows the same progression as a previous study, [22], including the use of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm for its flexibility making ability to optimize key sizing parameters. The pre-sizing methodology, presented in Figure 5, involves an optimization process with multiphysical constraints.…”

“…This work pursues a previous study [22], aiming to design a FCHEV with interleaved converters using an optimization algorithm. The objective is to develop an efficient sizing methodology, incorporating the modularity concept through the utilization of an interleaved architecture combined with the use of the potential of wide-bandgap semiconductors.…”