• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.5 s.248
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• pp.489-495
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• 2006

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) should be sufficiently hydrated with a careful consideration of heat and water management. Water management has been a critical operation issue for better understanding the operation and optimizing the performance of a PEM fuel cell. The flooding on cathode side resulting from excess water can limit the fuel cell performance. In this study, the visual cell was designed and fabricated fur the visualization of liquid water droplet dynamics related to cathode flooding in flow channels. The experiment was carried out to observe the formation, growth and removal of water droplets using CCD imaging system. Effects of operating conditions such as cell temperature, air flow rate and air relative humidity on cathode flooding characteristics were mainly investigated. Based on this study, we can get the basic insight into flooding phenomena and its two-phase flow nature. It is expected that data obtained can be effectively used fur the setup and validation of two-phase PEM fuel cell models considering cathode flooding.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.551-560
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• 2011

This paper proposes a grid-tied power conditioning system for the fuel cell power generation, which consists of a 2-stage DC-DC converter and a 3-phase PWM inverter. The 2-stage DC-DC converter boosts the fuel cell stack voltage of 26-48V up to 400V, using a hard-switching boost converter and a high-frequency unregulated LLC resonant converter. The operation of the proposed power conditioning system was verified through simulations with PSCAD/EMTDC software. Based on the simulation results, a laboratory experimental set-up was built with a 1.2kW PEM fuel-cell stack to verify the feasibility of hardware implementation. The developed power conditioning system shows a high efficiency of 91%, which is a very positive result for the commercialization.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

PEM 연료전지에 있어서 수분의 균형이 연료전지의 시스템 성능에 현저한 영향을 미친다. 그래서 수분 균형은 가장 중요한 요소 중의 일부가 되었으며, 이에 관한 연구가 광범위하게 이루어지고 있다. 적절한 수분 균형을 유지하기 위해서는 적당한 멤브레인 수화작용(membrane hydration)이 필요하며, 반대로 촉매층(catalyst layer)에서의 익수(water flooding)현상이 없어져야 한다. 따라서 이와 같은 동적 상태에서 PEM 연료전지 내의 수분 균형을 유지하기 위해서는, 고도의 동적 수분 조정 기술이 확보되어야 한다. 현재의 연구는 이러한 특성을 고려하여 PEM 연료전지에서 동적부하 상태에서의 수분 이동에 관한 일차원 해석 모델에 관한 것이다. 금번 모델링의 결과, 양극촉매층(CCL, cathode catalystlayer)에서의 수분 상태는 거의 포화 단계에 이르고 있음을 보여주고 있으며, 이 모델링은 연료전지가 작동되는 동안의 CCL에 나타나는 수분의 양상을 예측하는데 활용될 수 있다. 본 논문에서는 수분 이동 모델이 국제규격에 따라 다양한 수송기관이 가동될 때, 동적부하 상태에서 서로 다른 차이점을 발견하기 위한 시뮬레이션 결과에 초점이 맞추어져 있다. 이 모델링을 적용한 결과, 수분 포화도가 상태에 따라 상이하게 나타남을 알 수 있었고, 또한 정적 수분 조절 요소에 따라 최적 상태가 모든 동적 분포에 따라 달라짐을 알 수 있었다.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1018-1026
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• 2005

The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system consisting of stack and balance of plant (BOP) was modeled in a MATLAB/Simulink environment. High-pressure operating (compressor type) and low-pressure operating (air blower type) fuel cell systems were con­sidered. The effects of two main operating parameters (humidity and the pressure of the supplied gas) on the power distribution characteristics of BOP and the net system efficiency of the two systems mentioned above were compared and discussed. The simulation determines an optimum condition regarding parameters such as the cathode air pressure and the relative humidity for maximum net system efficiency for the operating fuel cell systems. This study contributes to get a basic insight into the fuel cell stack and BOP component sizing. Further research using muli­object variable optimization packages and the approach developed by this study can effectively contribute to an operating strategy for the practical use of fuel cell systems for vehicles.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2006

Water management is considered to be one of the main issues to be addressed for the performance improvement of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. For good water management, the detailed information on the water distribution inside an operating PEM fuel cell should be available to main an adequate level of hydration in the PEM While avoiding performance decline due to liquid rater flooding. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel ceil operation. In this study to investigate cathode flooding and its relation with temperature distribution in flow channels, visualization study was performed on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. For the direct visualization of temperature field and water transport in cathode flow channels, a transparent cell was designed and manufactured using quartz window. Water transport and its two-phase flow characteristics in flow channels were investigated experimentally. Also, the visualization of temperature distribution In cathode flow channels was made by using IR camera. Results indicated that the temperature rise near the exit of cathode flow channel was found. It is found that this area corresponds to the flooding area from both temperature and flooding visualization results It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to get the detailed data on water transport linked with heat management during the operation of a PEM fuel cell

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.406-411
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• 2021

PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells generate only water as a by-product, and thus are in the spotlight as an eco-friendly energy source. Among the various components composing the stack of the fuel cell, research on the bipolar plate that determines the efficiency of the fuel cell is being actively conducted. The composite bipolar plate has high strength, rigidity and corrosion resistance, but has the disadvantage of having a relatively low electrical conductivity. In this study, to overcome these shortcomings, a gas diffusion layer (GDL)-composite bipolar plate assembly was developed and its performance was experimentally verified. The graphite foil coating method developed in the previous study was applied to reduce the contact resistance between the bipolar plate and the GDL. In addition, in order to improve electron path in the stack and minimize the contact resistance between the GDL and the bipolar plate, a GDL-bipolar plate assembly was fabricated using a thin metal foil. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that the developed GDL-bipolar plate assembly had 98% lower electrical resistance compared to the conventional composite bipolar plate.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.277-279
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• 2005

The imbalance of energy demand and supply caused by rapid industrialization around the world and the associated environmental issues require and alternative energy source with possible renewable fuels. Political instability and depletion of cruel oils are other factors that cause fluctuation of oil price. Securing a new alternative energy source for the next century became an urgent issue that our nation is confronting with. As a matter of fact, the fuel cell technology can be widely used as next generation energy regardless of regions and climate. Specially, the ability of expansion and quick installation enable one to apply it for distributed power, where the technology is already gaining remarkable attentions for the application. Particularly, leading industrialized nations are focusing on the PEM fuel dell with anticipation that this technology will find their place of applications in the vehicles and homes. In this study, demonstrate the multi physics modeling of a proton exchange membrane(PEM) fuel cell with interdigitated flow field design. The model uses current balances, mass balance(Maxwell-Stefan diffusion for reactant, water and nitrogen gas) and momentum balance(gas flow) to simulate the PEM fuel cell behavior.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.96.1-96.1
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• 2005

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.3 no.2 s.10
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• pp.24-30
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• 2007

The transient response of PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell) is important criteria in the application of PEM fuel cell to real automotive system. In this work, using a transparent unit PEM fuel cell, the transient response and cathode flooding during load change are investigated. The cell voltage is acquired according to the current density change($0.3Acm^2$ to $0.6A/cm^2$) under various stoichiometry conditions and different flooding intensities, Also the cathode gas channel images are obtained by CCD imaging system simultaneously. The different level of undershoots appeared at the moment of load changes under different cathode stoichiometries and flooding intensities. It takes about 1s that the product water comes up onto the flow channel so that oxygen supply is temporarily blocked which causes voltage loss in that "undershoot". The correlation of the dynamic behavior with stoichiometry and cathode flooding is induced from the results of these experiments.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.67-72
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• 2006

Blower as an air supply system is one of the most important BOP (Balance of Plant) system fur FCV(Fuel Cell Vehicle). For generating and blowing compressed air, the motor of air blower consumes maximum 25% of net power and fuel cell demands a clean air. Considering the efficiency of whole FCV, low friction lubrication of high speed rotor is needed. For the purpose of reducing electrical power and supplying clean air to Fuel cell, oil-free air foil bearings are applied at the each side of brushless motor (BLDC) as journal bearings which diameter is 50mm. The normal power of driving motor has 1.7kW with the 30,000rpm operating range and the flow rate of air has maximum 160 SCFM. The impeller of blower was adopted a mixed type of centrifugal and axial which has several advantages for variable operating condition. The performance of turbo-blower and parameters of air foil bearings was investigated analytically and experimentally. From this study, the performance of the blower was confirmed to be suitable far 80kw PEM FC.