PHD Vehicle Mechatronics: Research by Edwin Tazelaar

There is a global search for more environmentally friendly means of transportation. Globally the need for mobility will only increase. Today we fulfil our need for mobility with vehicles based on fossil fuels. In future we expect a trend towards more diverse and sustainable solutions. Transportation based on hydrogen as fuel from sources like wind or solar energy will be one of them. In this driveline concept, fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity. Traction is delivered by an electrically powered drive train.

Protect the battery

Today, prototypes of fuel cell based vehicles are equipped with large batteries to avoid changes in the electricity produced by the fuel cell stack. Again a supercap is installed to protect the battery against fast dynamics. Although this choice is realistically based on the current state of technology, it is questionable if such a heavy and complex power system will be needed for vehicles in the future.  

Research questions

Some of the research questions are:

What is the effect of the size and dynamic performance of a component on the specifications of its neighbours in the power system?  
What is the relation between the control strategy and the sizing of the components?  
How does the demand pattern for traction affect the size of each component?  
Main focus in this research is to reduce system complexity and costs by exploiting the dynamic performance of the components.

This post-doctoral research is being carried out at HAN’s expertise centre for vehicle dynamics in cooperation with Eindhoven Technical University.