Investigation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack with inversely phased wavy flow field design

Abstract

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack based on metallic bipolar plate is promising in fuel cell vehicle applications due to its compact design and high power density. As the flow field design is critical to the fuel cell performance, in this work, the novel wavy flow fields designed in metallic bipolar plate with inverse phase for anode and cathode are investigated by both experiment and simulation. Validated by the test of 5-cell short stack with 315 cm2 active area, a three-dimensional non-isothermal model is developed to investigate the multi-physical processes and internal parameter uniformities of the presented stack design. The in-plane parameter distributions of current density, water content and reactant concentrations basically follow the cathode wavy flow field geometry rather than the anode one, while the temperature distribution presents multiple elliptical island shaped patterns according to the intercrossed wavy flow fields. The two-layered intercrossed wavy coolant channels enhance the thermal convection of the coolant which induces interlaminar secondary flow with 25% velocity magnitude of the primary one. The findings of this work are beneficial to understand the internal behavior of the fuel cell stack and optimize the flow field design for enhanced performance and heat dissipation capability.