Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Aisan Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshikatsu Fujimura

Shinobu Otsuka

Jiro Oikawa

Hiroyuki Imanishi

Shigeki Hasegawa

Tomotaka Ishikawa

Koji Sugiura

Shuya Kawahara

Keiichi Kaneko

Naoki Tomi

Tomoki Nakashima

Ryoichi Namba

Takeho Aisaka

Shun Matsumoto

Kei Kato

Tetsuya Tonosako

In the first step, the gas in the first tank body is supplied to a gas consuming device through a first gas supply pipe by bringing the first gas tank into the first state. In the second step, the first gas tank is brought from the first state to the second state after the gas amount in the first tank body is reduced to less than a predetermined reference a amount. In the step, the first gas tank is brought from the second state to the third state after the gas in the first gas supply pipe has been consumed by the gas consuming device and the pressure of the gas in the first gas supply pipe has been reduced to less than a predetermined reference pressure.

Method for disconnecting gas tank

A fuel cell system includes a control unit that detects an abnormality of a flow dividing valve provided in a bypass channel for an oxidation gas by using a detected opening degree detected by a valve opening degree detection sensor that detects the opening degree of the flow dividing valve. When the detected abnormality is an opening abnormality that is failure to open and the flow dividing valve can close, the control unit sends a closing command for making the opening degree smaller than a current opening degree to a valve driving motor. Either when the detected abnormality is a closing abnormality that is failure to close and the flow dividing valve can open or when the detected abnormality is an opening-closing abnormality that is failure both to close and to open, the control unit sends a maintaining command for maintaining the opening degree to the valve driving motor.

Fuel cell system

A fuel cell system includes: a fuel cell; a first valve device provided at an oxidation gas supply channel; a second valve device provided at an oxidation off-gas discharge channel; a third valve device provided at a bypass channel; an abnormality detection unit configured to detect an abnormality; and a control unit. The control unit causes the fuel cell to initiate fail-safe power generation if (i) a different abnormality from a valve opening abnormality is detected in the first valve device, (ii) the different abnormality is detected in the second valve device, or (iii) any abnormality is detected in the third valve device. During the fail-safe power generation, if any abnormality is additionally detected in any valve device different from the valve device in which an abnormality is already detected, the control unit stops power generation by the fuel cell.

A fuel cell system including a fuel cell, an air compressor that supplies oxidant gas to the fuel cell, an upstream supply pipe provided with the air compressor, a downstream supply pipe connected to the upstream supply pipe and the fuel cell, an upstream discharge pipe connected to the fuel cell, a downstream discharge pipe connected to the upstream discharge pipe, a bypass pipe, a valve mechanism configured to be switchable between a supply state and a bypass state, and a controller configured to control the air compressor, the valve mechanism, and a power generation state of the fuel cell.

A controller of a fuel cell system performs cathode gas supply control to raise an average cell voltage of a fuel cell stack by increasing supply of cathode gas to the fuel cell stack, when electric power required to be generated by the fuel cell stack is equal to zero, and the average cell voltage is lower than a predetermined target voltage. Under the cathode gas supply control, the controller sets the target voltage when a predetermined condition indicating that crossleak is likely to occur is satisfied, to a value higher than a reference target voltage as the target voltage in the case where the condition is not satisfied.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling the same

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Yoshikatsu Fujimura