Abstract
The content and the transmission characteristics of the water in the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) have a significant influence on its performance. So far, there are few separate numerical studies on the process of water transport in the bionic flow channel, and the performance of bionic flow channel is different from conventional flow channel in part owing to the differences of their water drainage. Therefore, in order to understand the water drainage process of bionic flow channel, two different types of bionic flow channels are adopted in this paper. The method of numerical simulation is used to study the transmission process of liquid water in the bionic flow channel of different placement orientations. The simulation results found that the orientations of bionic flow channel has an influence on the process of water transport in the flow channel, and the process of water drainage also has a significant difference in the two different types of bionic flow channel.
Highlights
The water management has always been the main problem to further enhance the performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)[1], in order to deeply understand the influence of the water transfer state and the various control parameters on the water transmission, so as to improve the internal structure and material properties of fuel cell, more and more studies on the water management of fuel cell are emerging, such as the high-tech measurement methods of Xrays, neutron imaging, scanning electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance, etc
The liquid water in the asymmetrical bionic flow channel is mainly distributed in the main flow channel, and the other branch flow channel has the presence of liquid water, in addition, the distribution of liquid water in the branch flow channel is no significant influence by the distance between the branch flow channel and the gas inlet, there is significant difference when compares with the situation that water is mainly distribution in the branch flow channel where near the gas inlet for the symmetrical leaf bionic flow channel, it can be seen clearly that the difference of water distribution between the two kinds of flow channels at about 15ms
For the type of symmetrical leaf bionic flow channel, comparing with the branch flow channel where far away from the gas inlet, water is mainly distributed in the branch flow channel which near the gas inlet, and there is almost no liquid water in the branch flow channel which is far away from the gas inlet
Summary
The water management has always been the main problem to further enhance the performance of PEMFC[1], in order to deeply understand the influence of the water transfer state and the various control parameters on the water transmission, so as to improve the internal structure and material properties of fuel cell, more and more studies on the water management of fuel cell are emerging, such as the high-tech measurement methods of Xrays, neutron imaging, scanning electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance, etc. Guo et al [29] presented a mathematical model to investigate the performance of leaf type flow field These scholars only conduct the overall test or simulation to the performance of fuel cell which have utilized the method of bionic design, and there is no separate study on the drainage performance in the flow channel of bionic design. Two different types of symmetrical leaf bionic flow channel and asymmetrical leaf bionic flow channel are selected as the research object [31], utilizing the method of numerical simulation to present the transfer process of liquid water in the bionic flow channel, and the influence of different placement orientations of bionic flow channel on water transport has been studied All of this can be conducive to a clear understanding of the internal water drainage process of bionic flow channel in detail, it provides the necessary guidance and basis for the design of bionic flow channel
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