Fuel cell climatic tests designed for new configured aircraft application

The implementation of Fuel Cell (FC) systems in transportation systems, as aircrafts, requires some better understanding and mastering of the new generator behaviours in low temperature environments. To this end, a PEMFC stack is tested and characterised in a climatic chamber. The impacts of the low temperatures over different FC operation and start-up conditions are estimated using a specific test bench developed in-lab. Some descriptions concerning the test facilities and the experimental set-up are given in the paper, as well as some information about the test procedures applied. Some examples of test results are shown and analysed. The experiments are derived from aircraft requirements and are related with different scenarios of airplane operation. Finally, some assessments concerning the FC system behaviour in low temperature conditions are made, especially with regard to the constraints to be encountered by the next embedded FC generators. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.