In-plane biaxial cyclic mechanical behavior of proton exchange membranes

Abstract

The durability of a proton exchange membrane is affected by both mechanical degradation and chemical degradation. While fatigue and relative humidity cycling tests have been conducted to address mechanical degradation, the cyclic behavior that bridges the gap between the stress-strain response and fatigue behavior is not well established. The objective of this study is to understand the strain evolution during biaxial cyclic loading that resemble the actual stress state of the membrane. In particular, the effect of loading paths on strain evolution is examined to account for the stress state on strain accumulation. It is found that the constraint effect of stress in one direction on strain evolution in another direction strongly depends on the stress state of the membrane, and the equibiaxial stress state imposes the most significant constraint on strain evolution. Furthermore, the constraint effect induced by biaxial loading is more significant at higher relative humidity values. Moreover, high-stress amplitude cycle acts to retard strain accumulation in the subsequent low-stress amplitude cycle. The findings reported here will provide new evidence for an understanding of the fatigue behavior of a proton exchange membrane as well as durability modeling of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.