• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.288-297
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• 2009

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from the intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with high aspect ratio of active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compressive forces. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.147-151
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• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.490-493
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• 2006

The results of simulation of direct methane fuel cell fed with liquid-state methanol feed are shown. This numerical process is based on mass and current conservation equations. The results showed that over low current density $(<200mA/cm^2)$ IV polarization curve was well-presented compared to experimental result. Methanol fed from anodic side moved into cathodic side through electrolyte membrane and the pressure near cathode electrode increased according to amount of methanol crossover and production of water. Besides change of overpotential on each el electrode were checked by x-axis.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.9-14
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• 2008

The effects of baffles in PEM fuel cell with parallel flow channel has been simulated by using conmmercial program. The simulation has been conducted through the channel and there are four different heights of baffles, No Baffle($H_b$=0), Partially Blocked Baffle(0.25, 0.5, 0.75), Fully Blocked Baffle(1) conditions. The result shows that current density changes while placing a baffle at the various positions along the channel. Current density with a single baffle is higher than that without baffle and current density using Fully Blocked Baffle(FBB) is much higher than current density using Partially Blocked Baffle(PBB). When the baffle is closer to outlet of the channel, current density increases. It is found that pressure is related to current density. If the pressure is higher, the better performance will be expected.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of IIIuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.355-358
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• 2005

This paper describes an simulation method to utilize the hybrid system with fuel cell and battery. The hybrid system has unique advantage to manage energy state between high energy system (fuel cell) and high power system (battery) according to various type of load. For proper design, the hybrid system is modelled and simulated. Especially, battery SOC is used as an important control parameter to decide the energy control.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.357-359
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• 2005

In this paper, a new SEPIC-Flyback converter with a single transformer has been proposed, which is suitable for a fuel cell based power generation system. The proposed converter is superposition of sepic and flyback converter mode. It has outstanding high boosting output voltage, component utilization and high efficiency characteristics under the inherently severe low output voltage of the fuel cell generator. The proposed converter for a full cell generator is described and verified by simulation and experimental result that make used of the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) Generator.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.54-61
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• 2004

Temperature characteristics in a stack of molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) have been investigated with simulation based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes and experimental way. The MCFC has generally two stack structures when the natural gas is used as fuel; one is the external reforming type and the other is internal reforming type. Computer simulation at the external reforming stack suggests that the maximum temperature in the stack depends on the gas flow length. The 2 kW MCFC stack with 25 cm gas flow length showed about $675^\circ{C}$ of maximum temperature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.63-66
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• 2008

This study presents 0-dimensional model for solid oxide fuel cells(SOFCs). The physics of the cell and the simplifying assumptions are presented, and only hydrogen participates in the electrochemical reaction. The electrical potential is predicted using this model. The Butler-Volmer equation is used to describe the activation polarization and the exchange current density is changed according to the partial pressure of reactants and the temperature. The electrical conductivities of electrodes and an electrolyte are calculated for the ohmic polarization. Material characteristics and temperature affect those factors. Analysis of concentration polarization based on transport of gaseous species through porous electrodes is incorporated in this model. Both binary diffusion and Knudsen diffusion are considered as the diffusion mechanism. For validation, simulation results at this work are compared with our experimental results and numerical results by other researchers.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1354-1358
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• 2003

The process equipment for handling high level radioactive materials like spent fuels is operated in a hot cell, due to high radioactivity. Thus, this equipment should be maintained and repaired optimally by a remotely operated manipulator. The master-slave manipulators(MSM) are widely used as a remote handling device in the hot cell. The equipment in the hot cell should be optimally placed within the workspace of the wall-mounted slave manipulator for the maintenance operation. But, because of the complexity in the hot cell, there would be some parts of the equipment that are not reached by the MSM. In this study, the maintenance process for these parts of the equipment is developed using virtual prototyping technology. To analyze the workspace of the maintenance device in the hot cell and to develop the maintenance processes for the process equipment, the virtual mock-up of the hot cell for the spent fuel handling process is implemented using IGRIP. For the implementation of the virtual mock-up, the parts of the equipment and maintenance devices such as the MSM and servo manipulator are modeled and assembled in 3-D graphics, and the appropriate kinematics are assigned. Also, the virtual workcell of the spent fuel management process is implemented in the graphical environment, which is the same as the real environment. Using this mock-up, the workspace of the manipulators in the hot cell and the operator's view through the wall-mounted lead glass are analyzed. Also, for the dedicated maintenance operation, the analyses for the detailed area of the end effectors in accordance with the slave manipulator's position and orientation are carried out. The parts of the equipment that are located outside of the MSM's workspace are specified and the maintenance process of the parts using the servo manipulator that is mounted in the hot cell is proposed. To monitor the process in the hot cell remotely, the virtual display system by a virtual camera in the virtual work cell is also proposed. And the graphic simulation using a virtual mock-up is performed to verify the proposed maintenance process. The maintenance process proposed in this study can be effectively used in the real hot cell operation and the implemented virtual mock-up can be used for analyzing the various hot cell operations and enhancing the reliability and safety of the spent fuel management.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.1891-1901
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• 2017

In this paper, optimal control of the fuel cell and design of a high-efficiency power converter is implemented to build a high-priced fuel cell system with minimum capacity. Conventional power converter devices use a non-isolated boost converter for high efficiency while the battery is charged, and reduce its conduction loss by using MOSFETs instead of diodes. However, the efficiency of the boost converter decreases, since overshoot occurs because there is a moment when the body diode of the MOSFET is conducted during the dead time and huge loss occurs when the dead time for the maximum-power-flowing state is used in the low-power-flowing state. The method proposed in this paper is to adjust the dead time of boost and rectifier switches by predicting the power flow to meet the maximum efficiency in every load condition. After analyzing parasite components, the stability and efficiency of the high-efficiency boost converter is improved by predictive compensation of the delay component of each part, and it is proven by simulation and experience. The variation in switching delay times of each switch of the full-bridge converter is compensated by falling time compensation, a control method of PWM, and it is also proven by simulation and experience.