Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Other

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Denso Corporation

Subaru Corporation

Nippon Soken, Inc.

Toyota Jidoshi Kabushiki Kaisha

Kawada Industries, Inc.

Panasonic Corporation

Masayoshi Iwase

Hitoshi Hamada

Shigeyuki Kawatsu

Seiji Mizuno

Kazuo Tojima

Tomokazu Yamauchi

Joji Yoshimura

Shinji Hamada

Munehisa Ikoma

Toyohiko Eto

Toshiaki Nakanishi

Katsuhiko Yamaguchi

Tadao Kimura

Toshiyuki Sekimori

Keigo Mizutani

Akihiro Taniguchi

Shuhei Marukawa

Noriyuki Fujioka

Kazuhiko Yoshida

Ko Watanabe

Kunio Kanamaru

Kiwamu Inui

Yusai Murakami

Hyuga Atsumi

Naoto Arai

Hiromichi Kuno

Seiji Bito

Hidetaka Hayashi

Yoshiyuki Nakayama

Takahiko Miki

Yozoh Ogino

Sadao Mizuno

Kouji Otsubo

A vehicle includes a dash cross member extending along a vehicle width direction, a front side member arranged in front of the dash cross member and joined to the dash cross member, a floor member arranged behind the dash cross member, and a brace joined to the dash cross member and joined to the floor member. A joint between the brace and the dash cross member overlaps a joint between the front side member and the dash cross member in the vehicle width direction. The brace includes an extending portion. The extending portion is joined to the floor member.

Vehicle

An improved fuel cell makes uniform partial gas pressure of a fuel gas flowing through a gas passage formed between an electrode and a separator of a fuel cell, activating an electrode reaction in a whole region of the electrode surface along the gas passage. The inlet and outlet for the fuel gas are disposed on a diagonal line of the separator to define a gas passage such that fuel gas smoothly flows even though portions of the passage away from the diagonal line. This may reduce the separator size and improve the volumetric efficiency of the fuel cell and the diffusibility of fuel gas as well as the drainage of water produced by the electrode reaction.

Fuel cell and separator for the same

A system which enables fuel cells to be activated at a working point of high energy conversion efficiency. A control unit calculates a required output of an inverter from an input accelerator travel. The control unit specifies an output electric current-output voltage characteristic corresponding to a gas flow rate, obtains a point of highest energy conversion efficiency on the specified characteristic to specify the point as a working point of fuel cells, and computes an output electric power of the fuel cells at the specified working point. The control unit determines an output voltage required to a battery, based on a difference between the calculated required output of the inverter and the computed output electric power of the fuel cells and a state of charge of the battery. The control unit controls a DC-DC converter and regulates the output voltage of the DC-DC converter, so as to cause the battery to generate the output voltage thus determined. The control unit subsequently controls the inverter, so as to cause a motor to consume electric power corresponding to the required output.

Fuel cells system and method of controlling cells

A hydrogen sensor which may be employed in an overcharge/overdischarge detector for a battery and a hydrogen leakage detector for a fuel cell is provided. The hydrogen sensor includes a sensor element and a diffused resistor member. The gas to be measured passes through the diffused resistor member and reaches the sensor element. The sensor element outputs a signal indicative of the concentration of hydrogen contained in the gas as a function of a decrease in concentration of oxygen contained in the gas arising from reaction of the hydrogen on the oxygen. The diffused resistor member is so designed that speeds of diffusion of the hydrogen and the oxygen when passing through the diffused resistor member are different from each other for increasing the sensitivity of measurement of the concentration of hydrogen.

Hydrogen sensor for use in battery overcharge/overdischarge detector and hydrogen leakage detector

The combined battery of the present invention includes two end plates and a plurality of general cells stacked adjacent each other and bound by two end plates. The general cells are provided with a battery container made of resin, and bound by two end plates with a binding force equal to or lower than a threshold value determined based on the number and the compressibility of the cells and the stiffness of the battery container, in such a manner that no more than a predetermined amount of irreversible deformation will be caused in the battery container.

Method of binding a plurality of sealed battery cells

A battery assembly includes a plurality of battery modules electrically connected together, each battery module acting as a secondary battery and including an electrode group, an electrolyte, a container for housing the electrode group and the electrolyte, and a safety valve operating in accordance with the internal pressure of the container. The working pressure of each safety valve is set so that the safety valve of at least one battery module is opened when the at least one battery module has its maximum internal pressure or less during the charge equalization. It is possible to provide a battery assembly that can improve the reliability of the container strength by keeping the working pressure of each safety valve lower than the pressure that the container resists even under elevated temperature conditions.

Battery assembly

A system which enables fuel cells to be activated at a working point of high energy conversion efficiency. A control unit calculates a required output of an inverter from an input accelerator travel. The control unit specifies an output electric current-output voltage characteristic corresponding to a gas flow rate, obtains a point of highest energy conversion efficiency on the specified characteristic to specify the point as a working point of fuel cells, and computes an output electric power of the fuel cells at the specified working point. The control unit determines an output voltage required to a battery, based on a difference between the calculated required output of the inverter and the computed output electric power of the fuel cells and a state of charge of the battery. The control unit controls a DC&mdash;DC converter and regulates the output voltage of the DC&mdash;DC converter, so as to cause the battery to generate the output voltage thus determined. The control unit subsequently controls the inverter, so as to cause a motor to consume electric power corresponding to the required output.

A battery module includes a plurality of cells accommodating an electrode plate group and an electrolyte, and a single integrated battery case for accommodating the plurality of cells. The ratio of the component resistance including the connecting resistance between the cells to the reactive resistance of the electrode plate group and the electrolyte in each cell, is set in the range of 1:99-40:60 at a temperature of 25&deg; C. Thereby, the internal resistance per cell is reduced, and higher power output and improved service life characteristics are achieved.

Battery module

The present invention provides a method of replacing secondary batteries. In the method, batteries can be replaced at a low cost and performance of an overall battery assembly can be maximized after the battery replacement. The battery assembly is composed by electrically connecting a plurality of secondary batteries in series or in parallel. When a portion of the secondary batteries is judged as defective, the defective batteries are replaced by replacement batteries. In an aspect of the method, voltage is detected for every predetermined voltage detection block unit concerning secondary batteries composing the battery assembly in order to judge defects of the secondary batteries in the voltage detection block unit. Batteries in a voltage detection block unit will be replaced with replacement batteries if they are judged as defective.

Method of replacing secondary battery

A device and method of input/output control capable of exhibiting the battery performance by nature by rapidly raising the temperature of the secondary battery by the regeneration at a low temperature. A temperature rise controller controls the temperature rise of the battery pack based on the battery temperature, thereby determining a central value of the state-of-charge control in the range of the state of charge. A battery input/output controller voluntarily controls the state of charge based on the central value of the state-of-charge control from the temperature rise controller and the state of charge at the point of time from the state-of-charge operator, and controls charge and discharge based on the charge and discharge request from the outside to the battery pack.

Device and method for controlling input/output of secondary battery

A fuel cell has a plurality of passages for conveying a fluid in a stack formed of a plurality of unit cells. The connection of the passages is changed in accordance with the operating condition of the fuel cell. If the passage connection is thus changed, the passage resistance in the stack changes, so that an optimal performance of the fuel cell can be achieved in accordance with the operating condition thereof.

Fuel cell

A fuel cell system minimizes the power loss that may occur in a conduction passage during supply of electric power from a fuel cell to a load. A bypass connects between the input of a DC/DC converter and the output thereof, and therefore supplies power generated by the fuel cell to an inverter, bypassing the DC/DC converter. A changeover switch selectively changes the connection of the output of the fuel cell between the connection to the input of the DC/DC converter and the connection to the bypass. When the fuel cell is connected to the DC/DC converter, the power from the fuel cell is supplied to the inverter or a battery via the DC/DC converter. When the fuel cell is connected to the bypass, the power from the fuel cell is supplied to the inverter, bypassing the DC/DC converter. A cutoff switch disconnects the output of the battery from a connecting line. That is, the cutoff switch disconnects the battery from the inverter, the bypass and the like when turned off. When turned on, the cutoff switch,connects the battery to those components.

Fuel cell system capable of reducing electric power loss

The method of the present invention allows used electrolyte membranes to be easily recovered from fuel cells of relatively simple structure. A stack of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (10) is decomposed into unit cells (20), each unit cell (20) consisting of an electrolyte membrane 11 and electrodes (12,13). Each unit cell (20) is soaked in a soaking tank (51) filled with methanol and left for approximately ten minutes (see FIG. 5A). The soaking process substitutes water included in the electrolyte membrane (11) of the unit cell (20) by methanol and expands and deforms the electrolyte membrane (11), thereby dissolving a solid material caused by a proton-conductive polymer electrolyte solution working as an adhesive of joining the electrolyte membrane (11) with the electrodes (12,13). This weakens the adhesive forces at the interfaces between the electrolyte membrane (11) and the electrodes (12,13) and makes the electrolyte membrane (11) easily separable from the electrodes (12,13). After the electrolyte membrane (11) is separated from the electrodes (12,13) in a separation tank (53) (see FIG. 5B), the separated electrolyte membrane (11) is soaked in a substitution tank (55) filled with water (see FIG. 5C). Methanol included in the separated electrolyte membrane (11) is again substituted by water in the substitution tank (55). After the substitution, the electrolyte membrane (11) is placed in a wash tank (57) filled with aqueous hydrogen peroxide for cleaning (see FIG. 5D).

Method of recovering electrolyte membrane from fuel cell and apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Anjo, Japan

Masayoshi Iwase