A Fuel Cell Simulator for Control Logic Verification and Operator Training

제어로직 검증 및 운전원 훈련용 연료전지 시뮬레이터

This research presents a fuel cell simulator for control logic verification and operator training. Nowadays, power industries are focusing on clean energy as a response to new policy. The fuel cell can be the solution for clean energy, but operating technology is not well developed compared to other conventional power plans because of its short history. Therefore we need a simulator to verify the new control strategy and train operators, because the price of a real fuel cell system is too high and mechanically weak to be used for these kind of purposes. To develop the simulator, a 300 KW MCFC(Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell) system was modeled with stack, BOPs(pre-reformer, steam generator, etc) and mechanical components(valves, pipes, pumps, blowers, etc). The process model was integrated to emulated control system and HMI(Human Machine Interface). A static load and open loop tests were conducted for verifying the accuracy of the process model, since it is the most important part in the simulation. After verifying the process model, an automatic load change and start-up tests were conducted to verify the performance of a new control strategy(logic and functional loops).