Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society (한국수소및신에너지학회논문집)

The Korean Hydrogen and New Energy Society (한국수소및신에너지학회)
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Numerical Study on Flow Distribution in PEMFC with Metal foam Bipolar Plate

다공성 분리판을 적용한 고분자 전해질 연료전지의 유동 분포에 관한 전산해석 연구

  • SONG, MYEONGHO (Graduate School of Hanbat National University) ;
  • KIM, KYOUNGYOUN (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National University)
  • Received : 2016.01.29
  • Accepted : 2016.02.28
  • Published : 2016.02.29
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Abstract

It is important to uniformly supply the fuel gas into the reaction activity area in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Recent studies have shown that the cell performance can be significantly improved by employing metal foam gas distributor as compared with the conventional bipolar plate types. The metal foam gas distributor has been reported to be more efficient to fuel transport. In this study, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been performed to examine the effects of metal foam flow field design on the fuel supply to the reaction site. Darcy's law is used for the flow in the porous media. By solving additional advection equation for fluid particle trajectory, the gas transport has been visualized and examined for various geometrical configuration of metal foam gas distributor.

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References

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