Performance evaluation of the hydrogen-powered prototype locomotive ‘Hydrogen Pioneer’

Abstract

The narrow-gauge locomotive ‘Hydrogen Pioneer’, which was developed and constructed at the University of Birmingham, was employed to establish the performance of a hydrogen-hybrid railway traction vehicle. To achieve this several empirical tests were conducted. The locomotive utilises hydrogen gas in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell power-plant to supply electricity to the traction motors or charge the on-board lead-acid batteries. First, the resistance to motion of the vehicle was determined, then operating tests were conducted for the speeds 2 km h−1, 6 km h−1, 7 km h−1, and 10 km h−1 on a 30 m straight, level alignment resembling light running. The power-plant and vehicle efficiency as well as the performance of the hybrid system were recorded. The observed overall duty cycle efficiency of the power-plant was from 28% to 40% and peak-power demand, such as during acceleration, was provided by the battery-pack, while average power during the duty cycle was met by the fuel cell stack, as designed. The tests establish the proof-of-concept for a hydrogen-hybrid railway traction vehicle and the results indicate that the traction system can be applied to full-scale locomotives.

Document type: Article

Full document

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.134 under the license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

• http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/64675/1/WRAP_Hoffrichter_1-s2.0-S0378775313018004-main.pdf under the license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.134 under the license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

• http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/64675/1/WRAP_Hoffrichter_1-s2.0-S0378775313018004-main.pdf,

https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/files/16368859/Hoffrichter_Performance_evaluation_hydrogen_powered_Journal_Power_Sources_2014.pdf,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775313018004,

http://pure-oai.bham.ac.uk/ws/files/16368859/Hoffrichter_Performance_evaluation_hydrogen_powered_Journal_Power_Sources_2014.pdf,

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014JPS...250..120H/abstract,

https://core.ac.uk/display/82069620,

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/64675,

https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/performance-evaluation-of-the-hydrogenpowered-prototype-locomotive-hydrogen-pioneer(fef87599-d924-4bab-a869-e318e946c707).html,

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775313018004,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2031399924 under the license cc-by

• https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0378775313018004?httpAccept=text/xml,

https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0378775313018004?httpAccept=text/plain,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.134

• [ ] under the license https://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/

DOIS: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.134 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.134