• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.847-853
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• 2016

Here has been examined a 3-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling in order to investigate the performance analysis of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells with serpentine flow fields. The present CFD model considers the isothermal transport phenomena in a fuel cell involving mass, momentum transport, electrode kinetics, and potential fields. Co-current flow patterns for a PEMFC are considered for various geometries in the single straight cell. Current density distribution from the calculated distribution of oxygen and hydrogen mass fractions has been determined, where the activation overpotential has been also calculated within anode and cathode. CFD results showed that profiles differ from those simulations subjected to each the calculated activation overpotential. It is interesting that the present serpentine flow field shows the specific distribution of current density with respect to the aspect ratio of depth to width and the ratio of reaction area for various serpentine geometries. Simulation results were considered reasonable with the other CFD results reported in literature and global comparisons of the PEMFC model.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.373-387
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• 2024

The layout of the cathode flow field largely determines the net output power of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). To make the normal mass transfer effect best, the longitudinal channel was waved based on four serpentine flow channels, and the effects of sag depth and longitudinal channel width on the output efficiency of the cell were explored. The results show that the wave channel design systematically enhances the forced convection between adjacent channels, which can prevent a large zone of oxygen starvation zone at the outlet of the channel. The increase of the normal velocity in the gas transmission process will inevitably induce a significant enhancement of the mass transfer effect and obtain a higher current density in the reaction zone. For the longitudinal channel width, it is found that increasing its size in the effective range can greatly reduce the channel pressure drop without reducing the output power, thereby improving the overall efficiency. When the sag depth and longitudinal channel width gradient are 0.6 mm and 0.2 mm respectively, PEMFC can obtain the best comprehensive performance.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.245-251
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• 2007

The performance of fuel cell is enhanced with increasing reaction surface. Narrow flow channels in flow plate cause increased pumping power. Therefore it is very important to consider the pressure drops in the flow channel of fuel cell. Previous research for pressure drop for micro channel of fuel cell was focused on effects of various configuration of flow channel without electrochemical reaction. It is very important to know pressure loss of micro flow channel with electrochemical reaction because fluid density in micro channel is changed due to chemical reaction. In this paper, it is investigated that the pressure drops in micro channel of various geometries at anode and cathode with electrochemical reaction and compared them to friction coefficient (fRe), velocity, pressure losses for corresponding non reacting flow channel. The results show that friction factors for cold flow channel could be used for parallel and bended flow channel for flow channel design of fuel cell. In the other hand, pressure drop for serpentine flow channel is the lowest among flow channels due to bypass flow across gas diffusion layer under reacting flow condition although its pressure drop is highest for cold flow condition.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.604-612
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• 2009

Water management has been recognized as a crucial factor for achieving better performance and stability in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Proper water management should provide favorable water conditions, including the local humidity, membrane water content, and liquid water saturation in PEMFCs, thereby leading to more uniform electrochemical reaction and current generation. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was conducted to investigate the effects of the cathode relative humidity (RH) on the performance of a 3 by $3\;cm^2$ PEMFC with serpentine flow fields. The CFD results showed that the best performance of the PEMFC was obtained for the cathode RH of 80%, but the performance variation was small for the cathode RH range of $60{\sim}100%$. However, the loss of the PEMFC performance was significant when the cathode RH was reduced below 40%. The reason for such performance variation was investigated through the detailed inspection of ohmic loss, activation and concentration overpotential, and water and current distributions.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2828-2833
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• 2008

Water management is one of many operating parameters, which influences the performance and stability of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Local humidity condition including liquid water saturation has profound impacts on the distributions of overpotentials, current density, and membrane water content. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of the inlet humidity variation on the performance of a PEMFC of $9\;cm^2$ active cell area with serpentine flow fields. The results showed that the performance of the simulated PEMFC remained at an almost same level when the cathode inlet humidity was changed from 100% to 60%, while reaching its maximum at air humidity of 80%. However, further decrease in the cathode inlet humidity below 40% started to significantly deteriorate the performance of the PEMFC. The variations of overpotentials, membrane water content, etc. due to the change in the cathode inlet humidity were also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.689-698
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• 2021

The development of modern warfare detection technology is increasingly threatening the survivability of aircraft. Among them, IR-seeking missiles greatly affect the survivability of aircraft and are a main factor that reduces the success rate of aircraft missions. In order to increase aircraft survivability, studies on shape-modifying nozzles with added curvature are being actively conducted. In this study, we selected a double serpentine nozzle among shape-modifying nozzles to increase aircraft survivability. We then investigated the effects of the location of the maximum area change rate of the nozzle. It was confirmed that the location of the change rate of area affects the thrust and exit temperature of the nozzle. In addition, it was shown that the thrust penalty was reduced as the position of the change rate of the maximum area was located at the rear of the nozzle.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.225-233
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• 2014

This paper presents a Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) based simulation and experimental tracer test of flow pattern and turbulent energy dissipation inside a serpentine flocculation basin with continuous operation. Research focused on the evaluation of a specific flow pattern on the hydraulic behavior on the flocculation basin. From the results of CFD simulation and actual tracer test, both results were in good accordance with each other. Also, each Morill index were calculated as 1.5 from CFD simulation and 1.7 from actual tracer test, respectively. Especially, turbulence energy was dissipated relatively higher in the vicinity of inlet to the flocculation basin than other region. The differences between the CFD simulation and actual tracer test were 1.4 min in $T_{50}$, and 1.3 min in $T_p$, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.86-93
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• 2007

The PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell is one of the promising fuel cell systems as a new small power generating device for automobiles and buildings. The optimal design of cooling plates installed between MEA (membrane electrode assembly) is very important to achieve high performance and reliability of the PEMFC because it is very sensitive to temperature variations. In this study, six types of cooling plate models for the PEMFC including basic serpentine and parallel shapes were designed and their cooling performances were analyzed by using three-dimensional fluid dynamics with commercial software. The model 3 designed by revising the basic serpentine model represented the best cooling performance among them in the aspect of uniformity of temperature distribution and thermal reliability, The serpentine models showed higher pressure drop than the parallel models due to a higher flow rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.10 s.241
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• pp.1289-1297
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• 2005

The flow in a microchannel is usually characterized as a low Reynolds number (Re) so that good mixing is quite difficult to be achieved. In this regard, we developed a novel chaotic micromixer, named Serpentine Laminating Micromixer (SLM) in the present study, Part 1. In the SLM, the higher level of chaotic mixing can be achieved by combining two general chaotic mixing mechanisms: splitting/recombination and chaotic advection. The splitting and recombination (in other term, lamination) mechanism is obtained by the successive arrangement of 'F'-shape mixing units in two layers. The chaotic advection is induced by the overall three-dimensional serpentine path of the microchannel. Chaotic mixing performance of the SLM was fully characterized numerically. To compare the mixing performance, a T-type micromixer which has the same width, height and length of the SLM was also designed. The three-dimensional numerical mixing simulations show the superiority of the SLM over the T-type micromixer. From the cross-sectional simulation results of mixing patterns, the chaotic advection effect from the serpentine channel path design acts favorably to realize the ideal lamination of fluid flow as Re increases. Chaotic mixing mechanism, proposed in this study, could be easily integrated in Micro-Total-Analysis-System, Lab-on-a-Chip and so on.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1621-1632
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• 1993

A numerical simulation is carried out on flows in a rotating serpentine flow passage, which models a cooling passage in a gas turbine blade, by using a 3-D FVM based TURBO-D program. When it is rotating, the flow field exhibits quite different aspects due to the effect of the Coriolis force. Especially the secondary flow field appearing in the cross-sectional area is very complex because of the combined effect of the Coriolis force and the centrifugal force in the curved area. Local Nusselt numbers are also obtained based on the Reynolds analogy and compared with the published experimental data showing a good agreement. The results of the present study can be applied to the design of cooling passages of a gas turbine blade.