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http://dx.doi.org/10.7316/KHNES.2012.23.4.293

Prediction of Bypass Flow Rate through Gas Diffusion Layer in PEMFC with Serpentine Flow Channels  

Jeon, Se-Gye (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National Univ.)
Kim, Kuoung-Youn (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National Univ.)
Publication Information
Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society / v.23, no.4, 2012 , pp. 293-299 More about this Journal
Abstract
The serpentine flow channel is widely used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to prevent flooding phenomena because it effectively removes liquid water in the flow channel. The pressure drop between inlet and outlet increases as compared with straight channels due to minor losses associated with the corners of the turning configurations. This results in a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions, where some amount of reactant gas can be delivered to catalyst layers by convection through a gas diffusion layer (GDL). The enhancement of the convective flow in the GDL, so-called bypass flow, affects fuel cell performance since the bypass flow influences the reactant transport and thus its concentration over the active area. In the present paper, for the bipolar plate design, a simple analytic model has been proposed to predict the bypass flow in the serpentine type flow channels and validated with three-dimensional numerical simulation results.
Keywords
PEMFC; Serpentine flow channel; Bypass flow; Gas diffusion layer;
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Times Cited By KSCI : 1  (Citation Analysis)
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