A generalised program for fuel cell systems simulation

A computer program simulating the performance of a fuel cell system has been developed for the analysis of small-scale power plants and uotomotive technologies. FC2000 (Fuel Cells 2000) is based on a Sequential Modular Approach, is coded in Fortran and is user-interfaced by a preprocessor written in Visual Basic. All the system is compatible with a Window environment. Models describing fuel cell equipments were either home developed or acquired from already existing codes desdcribed in literature (Pierucci et alt., 1985), while the preprocessor was specifically created for this application. FC2000 has been succesfully applied to the study and design of transportation technologies and power-plant stationary systems. The paper will describe FC2000 structure, will provide the content of specific fuel cell models and finally will discuss the results of a typical design where an innovative solution is proposed to increase process efficiencies. © 2002 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved