• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.265-273
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• 2009

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) has low operating temperature and high efficiency. And PEMFC consists of many components as bipolar plate, gas diffusion layer, membrane etc.. Flow-field in bipolar plate roles path for transporting reactants to membrane. Therefore a design of flow-field has an effect on PEMFC's performance. In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed for comparing mixed multiple serpentine (MMS) flow-field and multiple serpentine (MS) flow-field. And we studied an effect according to change mixing region design in MMS flow-field. Finally the applicability of results is verified by performing CFD simulation about fixed MMS flow-field which is combined good designs.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2007

The objective of this study is to develop a 3D DMFC model for modeling gas evolution and flow patterns to design optimal flow field for gas management. The gas management on the anode side is an important issue in DMFC design and it greatly influences the performance of the fuel cell. The flow field is tightly related to gas management and distribution. Since experiment for the optimal design of various flow fields is difficult and expensive due to high bipolar plate cost, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is implemented to solve the problem. A two-fluid model was developed for CFD based flow field design. The CFD analysis is used to visualize and to analyze the flow pattern and to reduce the number of experiments. Case studies of typical flow field designs such as serpentine, zigzag, parallel and semi-serpentine type illustrate applications of the model. This study presents simulation results of velocity, pressure, methanol mole fraction and gas content distribution. The suggested model is verified to be useful for the optimal flow field design.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.74-82
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• 2012

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell performance is changed by the complicated physical phenomenon. In this study, water discharge performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell were performed numerically to compare serpentine channel flow fields of 5-pass 4-turn serpentine and 25 $cm^2$ reaction surface between with and without sub-channel at the rib. Through the supplement of sub channel flow field, it is shown from the results that water removal characteristic inside channel improves because the flow direction of under-rib convection is changed into the sub channel. Reacting gases supplied from entrance disperse into sub channel flow field and electrochemical reaction occurs uniformly over the reaction surface. The results obtained that total current density distributions become uniform because residence time of reacting gases traveling to sub-channel flow field is longer than to main channel.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.26 no.9
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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.

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.572-575
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• 2008

Flow-field design has much influence over the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) because it affects the pressure magnitude and distribution of the reactant gases. To obtain the pressure magnitude and distribution of reactant gases in four kinds of flow-field designs without additional measurement equipment, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed. After the CFD analysis, the performance values of PEMFC according to the flow-field configurations were measured via a single cell test. As expected, the pressure differences due to different flow-field configurations were related to the PEMFC performance because the actual performance results showed the same tendency as the results of the CFD analysis. A large pressure drop resulted in high PEMFC performance. So, the single serpentine configuration gave the highest performance. On the other hand, the parallel flow-field configuration gave the lowest performance because the pressure difference between inlet and outlet was the lowest.

• 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.