Abstract
End plates are located at both ends of a proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) stack. If the end plates are thin, clamping pressure is not uniform and the performance of PEMWE can deteriorate from leakage and high electrical contact resistance caused by the deformation of the thin end plates. In this study, end plates were designed to reduce the weight while clamping the stack uniformly by finite element analysis (FEA). The weights of the circular and square end plates were reduced compared to conventional end plates by 22.9% and 23.3%, respectively. The stress and strain distribution of square and circular end plates are analyzed using topology optimization. This analysis can improve the performance of the PEMWE by using new end plate designs verified by dummy cell stack simulation to maintain uniform pressure.
Highlights
Air pollution, carbon dioxide emissions, and fine dust problems have attracted attention due to the use of fossil fuels
Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) consists of an end plate, current collector, bipolar plate (BP), porous transport layer (PTL), and membrane electrode assembly (MEA) [3]
This study focuses on fuel cell performance based on the diffusion path for mass transfer in the gas diffusion layer (GDL), not in the end plates
Summary
Carbon dioxide emissions, and fine dust problems have attracted attention due to the use of fossil fuels. Asghar et al [11] designed and manufactured end plates for a 5 kW PEMFC that provided uniform pressure distribution between the fuel cell components (e.g., BPs, GDLs, and current collectors) and, reduced the contact resistance, which was measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Comparing the square and the circular end plates is necessary to ensure the uniform pressure distribution at each cell in the stacks. Stress, deformation analysis, and topology optimization are performed to reduce the weight of circular and square end plates. The exclusionnumber region of was appliedwas to the boltto and current value of 500, which repeated by as many times the convergence or setting value.toThe collector, while theisdesign region was applied toas the end plate—which was similar theminimum boundary normalized density was set to the default value of 0.001, and the percent retained at thewas response condition [19]. The simplified PEMWE stack consists of bolts, nuts, end plates, current collectors, and 21 dummy
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