New dynamic modeling of a real embedded metal hydride hydrogen storage system

In this work, the dynamic responses of the on board hydrogen storage system with commercially available metal hydride tanks are investigated based on the database collected from fuel cell electric vehicles operation experiments. A mathematical model considering the heat transfer measured by the temperature control system is developed to analyze the absorption and desorption reaction during operation. As a seal container filled with unknown metal hydride, the practical used hydrogen storage tank is a gray box in the embedded storage system. Without the information about characteristics of material, current operation state and degradation degree, the parameters of the model are uncertain. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to search for the optimal parameter set. The simulation results of the hydrogen storage system model using these parameters show great agreements with the real operating data under different temperature conditions; the maximal error is lower than 9%. •The applied system is constituted of metal hydride tank and heat exchange.•A dynamic modeling process is proposed for the embedded hydrogen storage system.•PSO algorithm is used to identify the parameters of the proposed dynamic model.•The dynamic model is validated by the database of real operation FC vehicles.