Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Toshihiro Egawa

Masahiro Okuyoshi

Tetsuya Bono

Atsuo Iio

Hisaya Fujioka

Makito Okumura

Keisuke Fujita

A controller of a FC system disclosed herein may be configured to: (1) start both of first and second FC stacks when a measured value of a gas sensor is lower than a first concentration: (2) maintain both of the first and second FC stacks stopped when the measured value is higher than a second concentration which is higher than the first concentration; and (3) when the measured value is from the first concentration to the second concentration, supply the fuel gas to the first FC stack while maintaining supply of the fuel gas to the second FC stack stopped, thereafter stop supply of the fuel gas to the first FC stack when a pressure in the first FC stack reaches a pressure threshold, and thereafter start the first FC stack when the pressure in the first FC stack after a predetermined time is higher than a pressure lower limit.

Fuel cell system

An FC system disclosed herein may comprise a plurality of FC units, a cooler, and a controller. Each of the FC units may comprise a FC stack, a supply passage/a return passage/a circulating passage through which refrigerant passes, and first temperature sensor. The supply passage supplies the refrigerant from the cooler to the FC stack. The return passage returns the refrigerant to the cooler. The circulating passage is connected to the supply passage and the return passage. The first temperature sensor is configured to measure a temperature of the refrigerant in the supply passage at a position upstream of a merging point of the supply passage and the circulating passage. When measured values of the first temperature sensors of the plurality of the FC units do not match, the controller is configured to provide notification about malfunction of the first temperature sensor.

An FC system disclosed herein comprise FC units, a cooler and a controller. Each of the FC units comprises a FC stack, a supply/a return/a circulating passages through which refrigerant flows and first to third temperature sensors. The first to third temperature sensors measure temperatures of the refrigerant in the passages at different positions. The controller is configured to stop a specific FC unit, compare measured values of the first to third temperature sensors of the stopped specific FC unit and, when one of the measured values differs from the other two of the measured values, provide notification about malfunction of the temperature sensor with the different measured value.

The present disclosure relates to a fuel cell system. In abnormality detection control, a control unit of the fuel cell system obtains a maximum filling pressure that is a maximum value of the pressure in a filling flow path during filling, and determines that both of first and second pressure sensors are normal when the difference between a supply start pressure and the maximum filling pressure is equal to or smaller than a reference value. When this difference is larger than the reference value, the control unit determines that there is a possibility that at least one of the first and second pressure sensors may be abnormal. The supply start pressure is a detection value of the second pressure sensor at the time when supply of fuel gas to a fuel cell is started for the first time after filling of a fuel tank with the fuel gas is finished.

Fuel cell system and method for detecting abnormality of fuel cell system

The power controller starts imposing the current limit when a condition for the current limit is met the condition, the condition being that the fuel cell does not generate to fulfill the requested amount of power generation while the fuel cell generates power at an upper limit of the supply capability of the fuel gas supply unit, and the power controller removes the current limit at a first predetermined increase rate determined when the requested amount of power generation exceeds a predetermined threshold below a rated power generation amount of the fuel cell and at a second increase rate higher than the first increase rate when the requested amount of power generation is the threshold or less, after the condition for the limit is dissolved.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling fuel cell system

A fuel cell system installed in a mobile body comprises; a fuel cell; a gas supply flow path; an injection device provided on the gas supply flow path; a pressure regulating valve configured to be provided more on an upstream side than the injection device on the gas supply flow path, and to autonomously perform an opening/closing operation in accordance with a difference between pressure between the pressure regulating valve and the injection device on the gas supply flow path and pressure on an upstream side of the pressure regulating valve; and a control unit configured to control injection of the reaction gas by the injection device. The control unit calculates an injection interval of the injection device based on an upper limit operation count of the pressure regulating valve set in advance with respect to a predetermined traveling distance of the mobile body.

Fuel cell system and injection control method

A plant control system is equipped with a plant, an actuator that controls a state of the plant based on a command value, and an arithmetic device that calculates the command value through the use of state information indicating the state of the plant and that outputs the command value to the actuator. The arithmetic device adopts, as the command value, a value of u obtained by deleting a time differential of y from equations: dy/dt=f(y, u, d, t) and K&#xd7;dy/dt=K&#xd7;y&#x2212;K&#xd7;y+K&#xd7;(time integral of (y&#x2212;y))+K.

Plant control system, plant control method, and non-transitory computer-readable medium

Provided is a fuel cell system including: a fuel cell; an anode gas supply device; a pressure sensor; a discharge valve; an estimation unit that estimates an anode gas concentration; and a control unit. The control unit performs first control of opening the discharge valve when a first valve opening condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or lower than a first concentration, and closing the discharge valve when a first valve closing condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or higher than a second concentration higher than the first concentration, and performs second control of closing the discharge valve when a deviation between the target pressure value and a value of the pressure sensor is continuously equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold for a predetermined period, and opening the discharge value when a second valve opening condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or lower than a third concentration lower than the first concentration, or in which a value obtained by multiplying the estimated anode gas concentration by a predetermined coefficient so that the anode gas concentration is estimated to be high is equal to or lower than the first concentration.

Fuel cell system and control method of fuel cell system

A control device includes a target value acquisition portion configured to acquire a target value of amount of control per predetermined computation cycle, a control portion configured to control the control target using the acquired target value, a target smoothing value calculation portion configured to calculate a target smoothing value in which a temporal change in the target value is slowed down, and a state determination portion configured to calculate a first difference that is a difference between the target value and the target smoothing value to determine that the amount of control is in a transient state when the calculated first difference is equal to or more than a predetermined first threshold value and to determine that the amount of control is in a non-transient state when the first difference is smaller than the first threshold value.

Control device, control method, and non-transitory computer readable medium for fuel cell system

In a fuel cell system including a fuel cell, an anode gas supply channel, an anode gas discharge channel, an injector, a pressure sensor, and a controller, the controller controls the injector so that the pressure on the downstream side of the injector in the anode gas supply channel and does not become lower than target pressure, closes a discharge valve when the amount of discharged anode gas reaches a target discharge amount, the amount of discharged anode gas estimated based on the amount of decrease in the value of the pressure in a first period of the discharge valve open-period, the first period being a period from the point of time after the injector stops the injection and when variation of the pressure falls within a predetermined range to the point of time when the injector next starts the injection, and increases a ratio of the first period to the drive cycle by controlling, during the discharge valve open-period, at least one of the anode gas supply rate of the injector, the amount of electric power generated by the fuel cell, and the drive cycle of the injector.

It is possible to suppress errors remaining in the measurement by a pressure sensor. A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, a tank storing fuel gas, a fuel gas supply flow path feeding the fuel gas from the tank to the fuel cell, a first pressure reduction unit reducing pressure of the fuel gas and feeding the fuel gas, a first pressure sensor measuring pressure in the fuel gas supply flow path, a second pressure sensor measuring pressure in the fuel gas supply flow path, a switching valve switching execution and stop of supply of the fuel gas, a correction unit correcting the first pressure sensor based on a second measurement value measured by the second pressure sensor, and a controller controlling the fuel cell system. The controller performs, when the switching valve stops supply of the fuel gas and a first measurement value is larger than a predetermined value, pressure reduction processing to make the first measurement value equal to or smaller than the predetermined value, and then controls the correction unit to correct the first pressure sensor.

Growing community of inventors

Okazaki, Japan

Toshihiro Egawa