• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.41-55
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• 2018

General polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEMFC) operates at less than $80^{\circ}C$. Therefore liquid phase water resulting from electrochemical reaction accumulates and floods the cell which in turn increases the mass transfer loss. To prevent the flooding, it is common to employ serpentine flow channel, which can efficiently export liquid phase water to the outlet. The major drawback of utilizing serpentine flow channel is the large pressure drop that happens between the inlet and outlet. On the other hand, in the high temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cell (HT-PEMFC), since the operating temperature is 130 to $180^{\circ}C$, the generated water is in the state of gas, so the flooding phenomenon is not taken into consideration. In HT-PEMFCs parallel flow channel with lower pressure drop between the inlet and outlet is employed therefore, in order to circulate hydrogen and air in the cell less pumping power is required. In this study we analyzed HT-PEMFC's different flow channels by parallel computation using previously developed 3-D isothermal model. All the flow channels had an active area of $25cm^2$. Also, we numerically compared the performance of HT-PEMFC parallel flow channel with different manifold area and Rib interval against the original serpentine flow channel. Results of the analysis are shown in the form of three-dimensional contour polarization curves, flow characteristics in the channel, current density distribution in the Membrane, overpotential distribution in the catalyst layer, and hydrogen and oxygen concentration distribution. As a result, the performance of a real area fuel cell was predicted.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제33권4호
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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.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제23권4호
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• pp.293-299
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• 2012

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.

• 전기화학회지
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.74-82
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• 2012

고분자전해질 연료전지의 성능은 매우 복잡한 물리 현상들에 의해 변화하게 된다. 반응면적이 25 $cm^2$인 5-pass, 4-turn 사행성 유동유로의 립 부분에 보조유동유로를 가지는 형상에 대하여 물관리 측면에서의 연료전지 성능을 수치해석을 통해 비교하였다. 보조유동유로를 추가함에 따라 촉매층 공급 대류의 유동 방향이 변경되어 유로 내부의 물 배출 특성을 향상시키는 결과를 나타내었다. 또한 입구에서의 공급기체를 보조유동유로로 분산시킴에 따라 입구에서의 전류 밀도는 낮아지며 보조유동유로로 이동하는 공급기체들은 주 유동유로의 내에서의 체류시간보다 길어져서 전체적인 전류밀도 분포가 균일해지는 것을 확인하였다.

• 전기화학회지
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.245-251
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• 2007

주어진 연료전지면적에서 반응면적이 넓을수록 성능이 향상되는 연료전지는 좁은 폭의 채널을 여러 개 존재하게 하는 구조를 선호하지만 채널 폭이 좁아질수록 압력이 커지는 문제가 고려되어져야 한다. 그러나 현재 채널 구조에 따른 압력에 대한 연구는 많이 진행되어져 왔지만 대부분 반응을 고려하지 않았으며, 반응을 고려한 경우에 어떤 경향을 나타내는지 알아보는 것이 연료전지 유로설계에 있어 매우 중요하다. 본 논문에서 화학반응을 고려한 평행류, 90도 밴드형, serpentine 세가지 종류의 유로채널를 가진 연료전지를 수치 해석하여 반응을 고려하지 않은 경우와 마찰계수(fRe), 속도, 압력강하를 비교하여 본 결과 parallel과 bend 형태의 채널은 반응을 고려한 경우 반응에 의한 밀도의 감소에 따라 근소하게 감소한 것을 알 수 있었다. 그러나 serpentine채널은 다공성매체인 확산층을 통해 인접한 채널로 가스가 이동하는 bypass flow 영향에 의하여 상대적으로 낮은 압력강하를 나타내는 것을 알 수 있었다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2007년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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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.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제26권9호
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• pp.1201-1208
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• 2002

A numerical flow-field analysis is performed to investigate flow configurations in the anode, cathode and cooling channels on the bipolar plates of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Continuous open-faced flow channels are formed on the bipolar plate surface to supply hydrogen, air and water. In this analysis, two types of channel pattern are considered: serpentine and spiral. The averaged pressure distribution and velocity profiles of the hydrogen, air and water channels are calculated by two-dimensional flow-field analysis. The equations for the conservation of mass and momentum in the two-dimensional fluid flow analysis are slightly modified to include the characteristics of the PEMFC. The analysis results indicate that the serpentine flow-fields are locally unstable (because two channels are cross at right angles). The spiral flow-fields has more stable than the serpentine, due to rotational fluid-flow inertia forces. From this study, the spiral channel pattern is suggested for a channel pattern of the bipolar plate of the PEMFC to obtain better performance.

• 한국전산유체공학회지
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.31-36
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• 2010

In the present study, computations for flow fields inside the CDI unit cells with electrodes and spacers have been made to evaluate their performance. Three types of unit cells that include a planar type, a serpentine channel type, and a spiral wound type were considered and their flow characteristics were compared. From the computational results, it is found that the serpentine channel type has a large flow resistance and can not guarantee the outflow flux for industrial applications. On the other hand, the planar type can sustain a large enough outflow flux but it's efficiency is low for the electrode-use because of the non-uniform velocity distribution inside the cell and dead zones in every corner. Finally, The spiral wound type has not only a large outflow flux as much as the planar type has, but also a high efficiency for the electrode-use because of uniform velocity distribution. From this comparison, we can expect that the spiral wound type of CDI unit cell would have a high performance deionization capability.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제34권10호
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• pp.885-891
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• 2010

고분자 전해질 연료전지(PEMFC)의 열관리는 성능 향상과 내구성 측면에서 중요한 문제이다. 일반적으로 냉각수 순환 유로를 가진 냉각판이 여러 개의 단전지 사이에 삽입되어 PEMFC 내부에서 발생하는 반응열을 외부로 배출한다. 본 연구에서는 개선된 병렬 사형유로(MPSFF)를 향상된 냉각성능을 가진 냉각판 유로형상으로 제안하고, 이를 전산유체역학(CFD) 해석을 통하여 평가하였다. 비교를 위하여 냉각수 유로로 일반적으로 사용되는 사형유로 및 병렬형유로의 냉각성능에 대한 계산도 수행하였다. CFD 결과는 개선된 병렬 사형유로가 냉각판 표면에서의 온도의 비균일도를 상당히 감소시키고, 따라서 PEMFC의 내구성과 성능을 향상시킬 수 있음을 보여주었다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.135-142
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• 2009

In this investigation, we prepared a 1 and 3-parallel serpentine single PEMFC, which has an active area of $100\;cm^2$ and a flow channel cross section of $1{\times}1mm$. Distribution and transport of water in a non-operating PEMFC were observed by varying flow types and the flow rates (250, 400, and 850 cc/min). This investigation was performed at the neutron imaging facility at the CO1d Neutron RAdiography facility (CONRAD), HMI, Germany of which the collimation ratio and neutron fluence rate are 250, $1{\times}10^{6}n/s/cm^2$, respectively. The neutron image was continuously recorded by a scintillator and lens-CCD coupled detector system every 10 seconds. It has been observed that although the distilled water was supplied into the cathode channel only, the neutron image showed a water movement from the cathode to the anode channel. The water at the cathode channel was completely discharged as soon as the pressurized air was supplied. But the water at the anode channel was not easily removed by the pressurized air except for the 3-parallel serpentine type with 850cc/min of air flow rate. Moreover, the water at the MEA wasn't removed for any of the cases.