Keywords: shunting locomotives, freight transport, fuel cell hybrid powertrain, requirement analysis.

Currently most shunting locomotives in Europe are equipped with diesel-powered internal combustion engines offering the advantage of being universally applicable and able to operate independently of overhead lines. Concerning international decarbonization goals, the hydrogen-based fuel cell hybrid powertrain can omit local CO2 emissions completely. For such novel technologies economic viability is a key factor to allow for rapid adoption by the market. At the moment, no standardized or unified energy and performance-related requirement profiles for shunting locomotives are available as a widely usable database in order to be used as simulative input for an in-depth performance demand analysis. Furthermore, shunting related specifications are more difficult to map than requirements for mainline rail services or other line haul services, since a wide range of operational demands have to be considered. Therefore, this study compares to methods for determining powertrain requirements for shunting locomotives. Method one is the evaluation of generically created and simulated shunting profiles and method two intents at using operational driving data. Then, the determined energy and performance-related requirements are used to for the exemplary dimensioning of a fuel cell hybrid powertrain for each case. The aim is to investigate to which extent generic requirement profiles for shunting locomotives can be transferred to other applications.The evaluation of the two described methods for the derivation of dimensioning properties in shunting operations showed that similar results could be generated for the subsequent powertrain layouts. In this analysis the simulated shunting profile indicates to be more demanding. However, a direct comparison of the two methods shows that the fuel cell hybrid system sizes differ only marginally. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that this study only takes one set of real operational shunting data into consideration. Therefore, further research is needed to ensure applicability to other operators, by collecting, analysing and clustering of shunting requirements in order to validate or adapt the existing generic shunting profiles. Through unifying and modularizing components and dimensioning sizes for fuel cell hybrid powertrains by using standardized shunting profiles, development costs and authorization efforts can be reduced generating economies of scale and enhancing the economic viability of implementation projects. In conclusion, standardized driving profiles that reflect the widest possible spectrum of operational requirements for shunting locomotives are necessary in order to offer locally emission free fuel cell powertrain designs that are economically viable, thereby increasing the leverage effect for CO2 reduction.

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