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Automotive Engineering ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (4): 662-668.doi: 10.19562/j.chinasae.qcgc.2024.04.012

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Performance Analysis of Elastocaloric Cooler Driven by Waste Heat from Fuel Cell

Yuxiang Peng,Qinghua Yu(),Rui Ao,Fuwu Yan   

  1. Wuhan University of Technology,Hubei Research Center for New Energy & Intelligent Connected Vehicle,Hubei Key Laboratory of Modern Automobile Parts Technology,Wuhan 430070
  • Received:2023-09-20 Revised:2023-10-12 Online:2024-04-25 Published:2024-04-24
  • Contact: Qinghua Yu E-mail:qhyu@whut.edu.cn

Abstract:

Heat-driven elastocaloric cooling is a new solid-state refrigeration technology which uses shape memory alloy deformation after heating to drive the phase transformation of elastocaloric materials to produce a refrigeration effect. In this paper, a combined system of elastocaloric refrigeration device and fuel cell is designed, which uses the waste heat from fuel cell to drive the elastocaloric-cooling device to improve the efficiency of energy utilization, and produce a cooling effect. Based on the working principles of fuel cell and elastocaloric cooling, a dynamic coupled simulation model for the whole system is established by Simulink software to study the dynamic operation characteristics of the combined system and the influence of operation parameters on the system performance. The results show that adding an elastocaloric cooler can improve the energy utilization efficiency of the whole system. When the operation temperature of fuel cell is 80 ℃, the system can produce 1.76 kW cooling power. Adjusting the operation pressure of fuel cell to 2.5 atm can maximize the comprehensive output power and operation efficiency of the system. The current density of fuel cell has opposite influence on the output power and operation efficiency of the combined system.

Key words: proton exchange membrane fuel cell, elastocaloric cooler, waste heat recovery