Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B (대한기계학회논문집B)

The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers (대한기계학회)
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Computational Fluid Dynamics Study on Uniform Cooling of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells by Parallel Multi-pass Serpentine Flow Fields

병렬 사형유로를 채택한 냉각판을 통한 고분자 전해질 연료전지의 균일 냉각에 대한 전산유체역학 해석 연구

  • Yu, Seung-Ho (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ.) ;
  • Baek, Seung-Man (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ.) ;
  • Nam, Jin-Hyun (School of Automotive, Industrial, and Mechanical Engineering, Daegu Univ.) ;
  • Kim, Charn-Jung (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ.)
  • 류승호 (서울대학교 기계항공공학부) ;
  • 백승만 (서울대학교 기계항공공학부) ;
  • 남진현 (대구대학교 자동차.산업.기계공학부) ;
  • 김찬중 (서울대학교 기계항공공학부)
  • Received : 2009.10.05
  • Accepted : 2010.09.06
  • Published : 2010.10.01
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Abstract

Thermal management is important for enhancing the performance and durability of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and is taken into account in the design of PEMFCs. In general, cooling pates with circulating liquid coolant (water) are inserted between several unit cells to exhaust the reaction heat from PEMFCs. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to characterize the uniform cooling performance of parallel multipass serpentine flow fields (MPSFFs) that were used as coolant flow channels in PEMFCs. The cooling performances of conventional serpentine and parallel flow fields were also evaluated for the purpose of comparison. The CFD results showed that the use of parallel MPSFFs can help reduce the temperature nonuniformity, and thus, can favorably enhance the performance and durability of PEMFCs.

고분자 전해질 연료전지(PEMFC)의 열관리는 성능 향상과 내구성 측면에서 중요한 문제이다. 일반적으로 냉각수 순환 유로를 가진 냉각판이 여러 개의 단전지 사이에 삽입되어 PEMFC 내부에서 발생하는 반응열을 외부로 배출한다. 본 연구에서는 개선된 병렬 사형유로(MPSFF)를 향상된 냉각성능을 가진 냉각판 유로형상으로 제안하고, 이를 전산유체역학(CFD) 해석을 통하여 평가하였다. 비교를 위하여 냉각수 유로로 일반적으로 사용되는 사형유로 및 병렬형유로의 냉각성능에 대한 계산도 수행하였다. CFD 결과는 개선된 병렬 사형유로가 냉각판 표면에서의 온도의 비균일도를 상당히 감소시키고, 따라서 PEMFC의 내구성과 성능을 향상시킬 수 있음을 보여주었다.

Keywords

References

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