Fault Diagnosis of Stacks

Cell voltage monitoring systems are important for avoiding cell reversal and consequent overheating damage to fuel cell components. However, some CVM systems are capable of recording actual cell voltage values and the corresponding stack currents (i.e. polarization curves). Analysis of polarization curves, including comparing between cells in a stack and with beginning-of-life values, may yield diagnoses of the specific causes of low cell voltage. We are currently exploring the method of using a model of the fuel cell as a curve to be fit to the data, and evaluating the resulting coefficients.