Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are largely used in various applications because of their pollution-free products and high energy conversion efficiency. In order to improve the related design, in the present work a new spiral flow field with a bypass is proposed. The reaction gas enters the flow field in the central path and diffuses in two directions through the flow channel and the bypass. The bypasses are arranged incrementally. The number of bypasses and the cross-section size of the bypasses are varied parametrically while a single-cell model of the PEMFC is used. The influence of the concentration of liquid water and oxygen in the cell on the performance of different flow fields is determined by means of Computational fluid dynamics (COMSOL Multiphysics software). Results show that when the bypass number is 48 and its cross-sectional area is 0.5 mm 2 , the cell exhibits the best performances.
Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is a portable and clean power generation device. The structural arrangement of the flow field has a significant influence on the delivery efficiency of PEMFC. In this article, a new bionic flow channel is designed based on the inspiration of a spider shape. The branch channel width and branch corner are studied as the focus, and its simulation is carried out by the method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The results show that when channel width/rib width and corner of the branch are 1.5 and 130 o , respectively, it is the best numerical combination and the cell comprehensive performance is excellent. The final model using this numerical combination is compared with the traditional flow channel model to verify the advancement of this scheme.
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