Research on low-temperature heat exchange performance of hydrogen preheating system for PEMFC engine

Abstract

The durability of membrane electrodes, which are the core components of the Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), seriously affects the service life of the stack. Under the action of long-term low temperature, the gas diffusion layer at the entrance will be aged and its micro-porous layer structure will be destroyed, which will hinder the removal of liquid water and gas transport, so it is necessary to preheat the anode hydrogen. In the present study, the influence of different pitch ratio and diameter ratio on heat transfer of corrugated tube heat exchanger is simulated by means of thermal-fluid coupled numerical simulation and periodic unit model, the effects of coolant flow rate and temperature on the overall heat transfer performance were also studied. The validity of the simulation results is verified by experiments, and the effect of hydrogen preheating on the stack performance is also tested. The simulation results show that the corrugated joint will disturb the flow of hydrogen, which increases the temperature gradient along the radial direction of the main flow and enhances the heat transfer. When Re is lower than 4000, the friction factor decreases quickly and then gradually flattens out. Compared with 0.5 for bellows with a pitch ratio of 1, the friction factor increases by 17%. With the increase of Re, the j values of different pitch ratios differ greatly and decrease linearly. For every 5 cm increase in the length of the corrugated tube, the total heat exchange capacity is increased by about 20%，and the total heat transfer increases about 100 W with the increase of the coolant flow 0.04 kg/s.