EVALUATION OF MODEL AND PERFORMANCE OF FUEL CELL HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLE IN DIFFERENT DRIVE CYCLES Kouros NEKOFAR, Fathollah OMMI, Golnaz POURABEDIN 1. 2. 2. 1 Islamic Azad University of Tafresh, Tafresh, IRAN 2 Mechanical Engineering Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IRAN ABSTRACT: In recent years, fuel cell vehicles are rapidly appearing all over the globe. In less than 10 years, fuel cell vehicles have gone from mere research novelties to operating prototypes and demonstration models. At the same time, government and industry in development countries have teamed up to invest billions of dollars in partnerships intended to commercialize fuel cell vehicles within the early years of the 21st century. The purpose of this study is evaluation of model and performance of fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle in different drive cycles. A fuel cell system model developed in this work is a semi-experimental model that allows users to use the theory and experimental relationships in a fuel cell system. The model can be used as part of a complex fuel cell vehicle model in advanced vehicle simulator (ADVISOR). This work reveals that the fuel consumption and energy efficiency vary in different drive cycles. Arising acceleration and speed in a drive cycle leads to Fuel consumption increase. In addition, energy losses in drive cycle relates to fuel cell system power request. Parasitic power in different parts of fuel cell system will increase when power request increases. Finally, most of energy losses in drive cycle occur in fuel cell system because of producing a lot of energy by fuel cell stack. KEYWORDS : Drive cycle, Energy efficiency, energy consumption, Fuel cell system. 1. INTRODUCTION In a fuel cell, electricity generated from chemical reaction is transformed to mechanical energy via an eclectic motor [1], [2]. Nowadays, there are several kinds of fuel cells in which PEM and SOFC can be pointed out as the most important ones. High power density and low operating temperature in addition to quick start capability of PEM fuel cells make them attractive for automobile manufacturing company [3], [4] so that in 1970, General Motors in the USA developed the first automobile using fuel cell, which was an unsuccessful project regarding the low efficiently and huge volume of its fuel cell. However, huge founding provided by Department of Energy after Persian Gulf War and additional investment provided by the United State Ministry of Interior in 1990 create a serious revolution in fuel cell technology in automobile industry. This policy is continued to the present time. Nowadays, billon dollars spend in fund by these two ministries and private sectors to accelerate the development of the fuel cell components and its related infrastructures. Ever increasing concentration in fuel cell research and its application in automobile industry provide an appropriate background for tremendous research in this field, especially in PEM fuel cells. For instance, Doss and his colleague in 1998 created a model for fuel cell systems to demonstrate power generation in which the temperature of the fuel cell was below than 300 k [5]. Quyang and his co-workers in 1999 studied five different fuels like liquefied natural gas, liquefied oil gas, methanol, hydrogen, de ethyl ether, fixture tropes diesel and electricity in five different vehicle as spark, diesel, hybrid electric, electric, and fuel cell vehicle. The results revealed that fuel cell could be recognized as high performance and low Tome VII (year 2009), Fascicule 2, (ISSN 1584 – 2665) 63