Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Tatsuaki Yokoyama

Keigo Suematsu

Atsushi Matsuba

Takahide Izutani

Shuji Hirakata

Katsuhiko Oshikawa

Hiroshi Fujitani

Masaaki Matsusue

Osamu Yumita

Katsuhiko Hirose

Nobuo Watanabe

Nobuhiro Tomosada

Koji Katano

Kenji Umayahara

Masashi Takagi

Makoto Ueno

Masami Aga

Syuuji Hirakata

Takumi Kuwahara

Toshihiro Tsuboi

An odorant addition device for adding odorant to fuel gas in a gas system that consumes the fuel gas, the device including: an addition unit for adding the odorant to fuel gas to be consumed by the gas system; an environmental condition detection unit for detecting in the gas system an environmental condition regarding diffusion of odorant in fuel gas; and an addition adjustment unit for adjusting mode of odorant addition by the addition unit based on the environmental condition detected by the environmental condition detection unit. In this way, it is possible to detect leakage of fuel gas more reliably and improve safety dramatically, in a gas system that consumes the fuel gas as fuel.

Odorant addition device and fuel gas supply system

A fuel cell system includes a hydrogen path for supplying odorant-added hydrogen to the fuel cell, an estimating unit to estimate the depositing of the odorant in the fuel cell, and control unit to heat the fuel cell up to a temperature at which at least part of the odorant deposited in the fuel cell evaporates when the depositing of the odorant is estimated.

Fuel cell system

Disclosed is a hydrogen supply apparatus which can mix an odorant with hydrogen gas even at a low temperature and can detect the leakage of the hydrogen gas. The apparatus comprises a gas storage means for storing hydrogen gas therein, an odorant-addition means for adding an odorant to the hydrogen gas fed from the gas storage means, and a temperature control means for controlling the temperature of at least one of the hydrogen gas stored in the gas storage means, the hydrogen gas fed from the gas storage means and the odorant.

Hydrogen supply apparatus and fuel gas supply apparatus

In a fuel cell system of the invention, a hydrogen leakage detection process closes a shutoff valve, which shuts off a supply of hydrogen from a hydrogen supply unit into a hydrogen supply flow path, and opens a pressure regulator, which reduces a pressure of hydrogen in the hydrogen supply flow path, so as to keep the hydrogen supply flow path in a state with no pressure regulation and make the fuel cell system in a leakage detectable state. In this leakage detectable state, the hydrogen leakage detection process measures at least one of a pressure and a flow rate as a state quantity of hydrogen in the hydrogen supply flow path that feeds the supply of hydrogen to fuel cells. The hydrogen leakage detection process analyzes a detected behavior of the state quantity in the leakage detectable process and specifies the occurrence of a hydrogen leakage in the downstream of the hydrogen supply unit. This arrangement enables highly accurate detection of a hydrogen leakage in the fuel cell system with the pressure regulator provided in the hydrogen supply flow path.

The present invention provides a technology related to a fuel cell system capable of adjusting a discharge amount of an odorant discharged to an outside of a moving body according to a state of the moving body. The fuel cell system mounted to a moving body includes: a fuel cell which generates electric power by electrochemically reacting a hydrogen gas with an oxidation gas; and a adjusting portion which adjusts an amount of an odorant to be discharged to an outside of the moving body according to a state of the moving body, the odorant being included in an anode off-gas discharged from an anode side of the fuel cell.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a fuel cell system that is capable of sensing unintended gas leakage from a discharge control means based on odor. A fuel cell system is provided with a bypass passageconnecting a fuel offgas passageat inlet of a odorant removal unitto the fuel offgas passagein the vicinity of outlet of the odorant removal unit, and the fuel cell system facilitates the removal of odor from the discharged fuel offgas, by closing a bypass valvein conjunction with opening a purge valve, and suppresses the removal of odor, by opening the bypass valvein conjunction with stop of discharge of fuel offgas caused by closing the purge valve

In a fuel cell system (), the amount of fuel gas supplied through an fuel gas supply passage () and the amount of fuel gas consumed by a fuel cell () are detected. A difference between the amount of supplied fuel gas and the amount of consumed fuel gas is calculated by subtracting the amount of consumed fuel gas from the amount of supplied fuel gas. The pressure of the fuel gas in a leak detection passage (Cx), the change in the pressure of the detected fuel gas can be detected, and the change in the amount of fuel gas in the gas leak detection passage (Cx) due to the change in the pressure of the fuel gas can thus be detected. The difference is corrected by subtracting the change in the amount of fuel gas in the gas leak detection passage from the difference. When the corrected difference is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, a fuel gas leak is detected in the leak detection passage (Cx).

Gas leak detection device and fuel cell system

A rolling control apparatus and method for controlling rolling of a vehicle controls braking force applied to at least one wheel of the vehicle. The apparatus and method set a target roll angle of the vehicle based on a rolling state of the vehicle, calculate a total control quantity for achieving the target roll angle, based on a running condition of the vehicle, and control the braking force applied to each wheel of the vehicle, based on the total control quantity.

Rolling control apparatus and method of vehicle

A control device for controlling the running behavior of a four wheeled vehicle has a mathematical tire model of each wheel defining a relationship between longitudinal and lateral forces vs. slip ratio, synthesizes the mathematical tire model at zero slip and a control input from an outside running behavior controller such as a spin controller or a driftout controller to generate nominal values of longitudinal force, lateral force and yaw moment of the vehicle body, and controls the slip ratio of the wheels through cyclic adjustment so as to approach the differences between the nominal values and the actual values in the longitudinal force, lateral force and yaw moment of the vehicle body to the corresponding differences of those parameters due to differentiation thereof by the slip ratio based upon the mathematical tire model.

Growing community of inventors

Susono, Japan

Tatsuaki Yokoyama