Abstract
Recently, the drone is tried to employ in the logistics industry that is known as cargo drone. Since a cargo drones requires high power density to allow large payload, hydrogen fuel cell is considered as power propulsion system for cargo drone. Typically, the fuel cell system of small drone is equipped with air cooled fuel cell system but the large payload of cargo drone requires liquid cooling fuel cell system. Since the high power density of cargo drone allows more weight for payload, the fuel cell should be operated with higher current density at the take-off. Those conditions result in serious amount of heat generation that should be maintained at reasonable set value for extended durability and high performance. Even though the liquid cooling of the fuel cells is very effective for controlling heat generation, the liquid cooling requires complicated system with heavy weight. Nonetheless, it is necessary to equip liquid cooling system as the system power requirement is large enough.
This study developed a 20kWe polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell system model through AMESet, a model development program, and the cooling system was developed as a water cooling system in consideration of the heat generation of the stack. The cooling system consists of a water pump, a cooling fan, a radiator, and a three-way valve, and the optimal cooling strategy is derived by comparing the temperature control performance of the fuel cell system with the parasitic energy of the cooling system.
