Dynamic Performance Analysis and Design of Fuel Cell Hybrid Locomotive

Fuel cells (FCs) for hybrid locomotives have slow dynamic responses and soft output characteristics, and are incapable of recovering regenerative energy in the braking process. In order to cope with these issues and improve the dynamic and economic performance of FC hybrid locomotives, a locomotive composed of two motor units and one trailer unit was used as a prototype on the Matlab platform to analyze the power and energy requirements of the locomotive when it is powered by FC, battery (B) and super-capacitor (SC) in typical cases, of the maximum speed, acceleration and slop. According to the analysis results, six configuration schemes of hybrid power were proposed, and their feasibility were discussed. The results show that the configuration with 2 sets of FC systems, 800 batteries and 108 super-capacitors is a feasible, reasonable and economic scheme to satisfy the power requirement of the locomotive to speed up to 30 km/h with 1 m/s2 acceleration and then continuously up to 70 km/h. This may provide a reference for the model selection in design of the same kind FC hybrid locomotives.