Comparison of performance of diesel and fuel cell based submarine power supplies

The use of diesel electric power on submarines can expose the submarine to danger from acoustic and visual detection. With an aim to reduce the amount of time the submarine is required to remain vulnerable in this way, this paper analyses a number of fuel cell diesel hybrid submarine configurations. A generic diesel electric power system model was selected as the baseline for comparison and a Simulink based energy management system was developed for its proper operation and control. It was then modified for a diesel fuel cell hybrid submarine to test the capabilities and limitations of each configuration. For the comparison of performance of different submarine energy systems, volume occupied by each system was kept constant. With an aim to increase the overall system performance, further optimizations to the system were investigated.