Title :
Dynamics, optimization and control of a fuel cell based combined heat power (CHP) system for shipboard applications
Author :
Tsourapas, Vasilis ; Stefanopoulou, Anna ; Sun, Jing
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Naval Archit. & Marine Eng., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Abstract :
In this paper, a natural gas fuel processor system (FPS), a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM-FC) and a catalytic burner (CB) are integrated in a combined heat power (CHP) generation plant. The FC provides the power based on electrochemical reaction of hydrogen (H2). The FPS generates the hydrogen from natural gas and the CB provides the energy for preheating the FPS inlet flows by burning any excess H2 from the FC exhaust. The coupling of these three systems poses a challenging optimization and control problem. The goal is to analyze the open loop dynamics and design a controller that achieves optimal steady state operation and acceptable transient performance, i.e., mitigates the H2 starvation and regulates reactor temperatures. We show in simulations that an observer based feedback controller, which relies on temperature measurements of two reactors, speeds up the transient response fivefold, as compared to the baseline when no feedback control is employed.
Keywords :
cogeneration; control system synthesis; fuel cell power plants; natural gas technology; observers; optimisation; temperature control; H2; catalytic burner; combined heat power generation plant; electrochemical reaction; fuel cell based combined heat power system; natural gas fuel processor system; observer based feedback controller; open loop dynamics; optimal steady state operation; proton exchange membrane fuel cell; transient response; Biomembranes; Cogeneration; Control systems; Fuel cells; Hydrogen; Inductors; Natural gas; Open loop systems; Protons; Temperature control;
Conference_Titel :
American Control Conference, 2005. Proceedings of the 2005
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-9098-9
Electronic_ISBN :
0743-1619
DOI :
10.1109/ACC.2005.1470262