Investigation and simulation of electric train utilizing hydrogen fuel cell and lithium-ion battery

[Display omitted] •High-level model of a hydrogen hybrid powertrain is developed.•Simulating the load profiles applied to a rapid transit train running in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Ontario province, Canada.•Validation with the real-world drive cycle in terms of power, voltage, temperature, and SOC.•Results may contribute towards hydrogen energy. This article includes a sensitivity analysis of a rolling stock hydrogen hybrid powertrain using different power splitting scenarios based on the load’s frequency contents. The model used for this purpose mimics the dynamics of a hydrogen hybrid powertrain from the component scale. The simulated powertrain consists of five different subsystems including the lithium-ion battery, hydrogen fuel cell, vehicle dynamics, power split, and high-level controller. As a novel case study, utilizing a customised frequency based power splitting scenario, a real-world load profile is observed throughout an implemented observer subsystem. The duty cycle is extracted based on the real world drive cycles of the current Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) which are currently running in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario, Canada. The model and its submodules are implemented in the MATLAB Simulink. As a result, the sensitivity of the system to the frequency content of the drive cycle were assessed in terms of different parameters such as simulated power, voltage, temperature, and state of charge (SOC). As a conclusion, different scenarios are compared based on the level of their fidelity to the other related researches.