Modeling Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Cathode Catalyst Layers with the Lattice Boltzmann Method-Direct Numerical Simulation Framework

Abstract

Dedicated to all the wonderful people in my life: Mom, Dad, Chris, and Carmen. Nate Hamilton too for teaching me how to code. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSFirst, I want to graciously acknowledge the people who have shaped me as a researcher. This long and difficult path was not possible without my mother (Cindy Grunewald), father (Jerry Grunewald), and brother (Chris Grunewald), as well as Carmen Chen and Zachary Herde, who have supported me every step of the way at Georgia Tech.I want to thank Dr. Tom Fuller, who I heard wonderful things about from Brian Setzler when I was still in Dr. Yushan Yan's lab at the University of Delaware, for all his guidance throughout these years. I wonder if he still remembers me pestering him if he had made his decision to take me on in Fall 2017 after thermo class. Dr. Fuller gave me a broad license to take this project in any way that I wanted after we developed the code, helping me figure out how to "see the forest from the trees" and broaden my horizons as a researcher. This project would also not have been possible without Dr. Partha Mukherjee and Navneet Goswami, who I collaborated with at Purdue University throughout the length of my PhD and helped shape the researcher I am today. I also wanted to thank Dr. Adam Weber, who graciously allowed me to be at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab over Summer 2021 to adapt my work to a new problem and further improve as a researcher. I also wanted to express gratitude to my wonderful group members for many long nights and inspiring conversations: