Development of a fuel cell electric boat for an international energy challenge

Fossil fuels have dominated the last years, they practically have the monopoly on the energy generation, both in power plant and in all means of transportation. Nowadays, a lot of laws has been made to reduce both the pollutant and greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels. Thus, some alternatives have to be found and one of the most promising is hydrogen. It has zero CO2 emissions and the technological applications are very cutting-edge, such as engine and fuel cells. The Monaco Boat energy challenge was created to make the world see some new technological boat propulsion strategy, with the only requirement of being carbon free. In this work, the powertrain of a fuel cell electric boat was modelled, using the software Simcenter Amesim, starting from zero. Obviously even the auxiliaries system were created, such as the hydrogen and air supply system, the coolant system and the control system. Furthermore the electrical connections were modelled, both with the fuel cell auxiliaries motors and the propulsion electric motor. Then shaft and gears were modelled, directly connected to the propeller of the boat. Finally the boat resistance model was modelled and thanks to that, all the optimization work started, trying to find an effective strategy to complete successfully all the race trials. The aim of this work is to build the first step toward a model that could simulate an effective race condition; the first step made here has to be seen as the first dimensioning activity of the powertrain components, while the model becomes more and more accurate when experimental data and official datasheets will be supplied.