Analytical and numerical study on cooling flow field designs performance of PEM fuel cell with variable heat flux
| Autor: | Nabi Jahantigh, Ebrahim Afshari, Masoud Ziaei-Rad |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Pressure drop
Materials science Critical heat flux 020209 energy Thermodynamics Proton exchange membrane fuel cell Statistical and Nonlinear Physics 02 engineering and technology Heat transfer coefficient Mechanics Heat sink 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Condensed Matter Physics Heat flux Heat transfer 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering 0210 nano-technology Nucleate boiling |
| Zdroj: | Modern Physics Letters B. 30:1650155 |
| ISSN: | 1793-6640 0217-9849 |
| Popis: | In PEM fuel cells, during electrochemical generation of electricity more than half of the chemical energy of hydrogen is converted to heat. This heat of reactions, if not exhausted properly, would impair the performance and durability of the cell. In general, large scale PEM fuel cells are cooled by liquid water that circulates through coolant flow channels formed in bipolar plates or in dedicated cooling plates. In this paper, a numerical method has been presented to study cooling and temperature distribution of a polymer membrane fuel cell stack. The heat flux on the cooling plate is variable. A three-dimensional model of fluid flow and heat transfer in cooling plates with 15 cm × 15 cm square area is considered and the performances of four different coolant flow field designs, parallel field and serpentine fields are compared in terms of maximum surface temperature, temperature uniformity and pressure drop characteristics. By comparing the results in two cases, the constant and variable heat flux, it is observed that applying constant heat flux instead of variable heat flux which is actually occurring in the fuel cells is not an accurate assumption. The numerical results indicated that the straight flow field model has temperature uniformity index and almost the same temperature difference with the serpentine models, while its pressure drop is less than all of the serpentine models. Another important advantage of this model is the much easier design and building than the spiral models. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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