COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF PEM FUEL CELL UNDER DIFFERENT OPERATING CONDITIONS

Abstract

PEM fuel cells are one of the most promising sources of electrical energy and also have interesting properties. This research is purely theoretical and based on ANSYS Fluent software. Thus, the next step of the research should be the comparison of the solutions to other models and experimental results. The PEM fuel cell can be used as an energy source in the near future in a much more common way, although there are few modifications required, such as increasing efficiency and reducing production costs.
 In general, a three-dimensional steady-state model of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell implemented in Fluent was used to study a single channel flow inside such a PEMFC. The analysis concerns an aspect, that seems to be overlooked in this type of analysis, namely the influence of the substrate flow rate on the quality and efficiency of the chemical reaction, and thus on the value of the generated current for a given voltage. In addition, attention is also paid to the problem of the possible influence of the flow model - laminar or turbulent on the mentioned reaction rate. Such theoretical research is very useful and very much needed to design a new PEM fuel cells, utilizing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool to statically monitor its performance for different boundary conditions.