IRSA 2023 Proceedings: Comparison of simulative methods for dimensioning of fuel cell-battery hybrid powertrains in FCH2Rail and VirtualFCS

Abstract

The dimensioning process of fuel cell and batteries in hybrid railway applications is one of the biggest challenges in this kind of powertrain. In this paper, methods for modelling and designing fuel cell hybrid power trains are investigated and functionally compared. Subsequently, an exemplary dimensioning is carried out on the basis of a specific scenario. The tools in focus are, on the one hand, the Hybridization Tool and SEnSOR, both developed by the German Aerospace Center and used in the European project FCH2Rail and, on the other hand, the open source model developed by the European project Virtual-FCS. The approach and target of the tools is fundamentally different. Their features are compared in order to understand which impact different models can have on the design and evaluation process of fuel cell hybrid powertrains.