A numerical study on liquid water exhaust capabilities of flow channels in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Effects of hydrophilic/hydrophobic properties of gas flow channels on liquid water transport in a serpentine polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

“…In Fig. 2a, the liquid water discharge through the channel outlet begins at t ¼ 0.8 s and 0.4 s for the hydrophilic and hydrophobic cases, respectively, consistently with the previous finding of Kim et al [9] that the hydrophobic wall leads to shorter discharge time of liquid water in the serpentine channel as compared with the hydrophilic wall. The hybrid case results in the most rapid water discharge (t ¼ 0.2 s) among the test cases, and the time-averaged S w is the lowest for the hybrid case (3.75%) as compared with the hydrophilic and hydrophobic cases (11.5% and 5.47%, respectively).…”

“…It was also reported that flooding could occur after liquid water passed the turning part, which implies that the liquid water should properly go through the straight part as well as the turning part for effective liquid water removal in the entire serpentine channel. On the other hand, Kim et al [9] performed numerical simulations with adjusting the contact angles of the walls in the serpentine flow channel and reported that the droplet discharge time was shorter in the hydrophobic wall than in the hydrophilic wall.…”

Simulation and Optimization of Air-Cooled PEMFC Stack for Lightweight Hybrid Vehicle Application

“…The ST heat dissipating model is usually used in the simulation of the water-cooled PEMFC stack; references [8-10] use this model to analyze. In addition, different flow fields are analyzed, such as parallel, interdigital, and serpentine ones [11][12][13][14]. ST model is also applied to compare their advantages and disadvantages, so as to find out the distributions of the temperature and the current density.…”

Numerical simulation of water droplet dynamics in a right angle gas channel of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

“…Although the simulation provided a good understanding of liquid water behavior inside complex gas channels, the effects of channel wall wettability and gas velocity were not considered. Kim et al conducted numerical simulations to analyze liquid water exhaust capabilities of 180 turn flow channels with a round and sharp bent sections [50]. The width of channel, the inlet air velocity, and the contact angle of channel walls were varied while other parameters were fixed.…”