Simulation and in situ measurement of stress distribution in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack

Cruz, Javier de la; Cano, U.; Romero, Tatiana

doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.08.073

Cited by 33 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…due to start-up and shutdown procedures, could lead to longterm degradation of the fuel cell performance. In line with [106], de la Cruz et al [17] reported an increase of 22% of the weight of a fully hydrated MEA compared to a dry one. This was explained in terms of water retention of the membrane.…”

Section: Hygrothermal-induced Stressesmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…This was explained in terms of water retention of the membrane. It was also reported that excess water could expand the membrane by 10%-15% in all directions [17]. Given that the membrane is constrained by the adjacent fuel cell components, the membrane expansion leads to the appearance of a creeping effect in the areas beneath the channels.…”

Section: Hygrothermal-induced Stressesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nonetheless, the lack of cohesion in the reported studies (clamping methods, operating conditions, PEFC components) makes it hardly possible to draw general conclusions regarding optimal clamping pressure. De la Cruz et al [17] measured the stress distribution in a PEFC stack. The effect of the membrane swelling was investigated by soaking the MEA in liquid water.…”

Section: Assembly Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to prevent hazardous situations, sealing gaskets are generally inserted between the MEA and the bipolar plates to ensure that no gas leakage (between the fuel cell and its external environment) occurs during the fuel cell operations. Various investigations have been reported in the literature to assess compression characteristics during the assembly process, either by simulations using numerical models [13,14] or experimental investigations using piezoresistive arrays [15,16] or pressure sensitive thin films [17,18]. However, each fuel cell component has its unique characteristics, especially the GDLs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two main types of characterisation are currently employed: (1) -ex-situ, where the individual components are characterised externally to the fuel cell, (2) -and in-situ, where the components are characterised within a fuel cell operating in real life conditions. Through employing these characterisation techniques, a large number of researchers working on the characterisation of PEFCs are placing their focus on some particular issues: (1) -GDL electrophysical properties [19][20][21]; (2) -mass transport limitations [22][23][24]; (3) -durability [25][26][27]; (4) -water transport visualisation techniques [28][29][30]; and (5) -pressure distribution [15][16][17][18]. Due to the complexity of the occurring phenomena, PEFCs must be diagnosed using suitable techniques that allow both evaluating all the presented issues and separating their respective impacts on the overall fuel cell performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Effects of mechanical compression on the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and analysis through in-situ characterisation techniques - A review

Khetabi

Bouziane

Zamel

et al. 2019

Journal of Power Sources

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One of the factors that affect the polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) performance is the mechanical compression inside the stack. Although this compression plays an important role to ensure efficient gas sealing along with optimised electrical and thermal conductivities during PEFCs operation, excessive mechanical pressure may worsen the fuel cell performance through reducing the porosity and transport ability of PEFC components. In the last few years, intensive research studies have focused on the gas diffusion layers (GDLs) due to the strong relation of their compressibility with the performance of the PEFCs. A few review papers investigating the compression effect on individual fuel cell components have already been published. However, the evaluation of this effect on an operating PEFC has rarely been reviewed. This paper covers a comprehensive overview of the studies that have focused on the relationship between mechanical compression and the observed performance of a PEFC operating in real life conditions (in-situ). In this study, the effects of GDL properties with respect to the applied mechanical compression and the operating conditions are investigated. Much more work in literature has focused on GDL properties. Thus, an extended discussion is dedicated to this cell element in this paper.

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Section: Hygrothermal-induced Stressesmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Hygrothermal-induced Stressesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Assembly Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Effects of mechanical compression on the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and analysis through in-situ characterisation techniques - A review

Khetabi

Bouziane

Zamel

et al. 2019

Journal of Power Sources

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In Situ and Operando Characterization of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

2019

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For proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to become a mainstream energy source, significant improvements in their performance, durability, and efficiency are necessary. To improve their durability, there must be a solid understanding of how the structural and electrochemical processes are affected during operation to propose mitigation strategies. To this aim, in situ and operando characterization techniques locally identify structural and electrochemical processes, which cannot be captured using conventional techniques. Nevertheless, linking these properties in the same geometric area has been challenging due to its inherent limitations, such as sample size and imaging resolution. This has created a knowledge gap in structure-to-electrochemical performance relationships as operation and degradation unevenly affect different areas of the cell.

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The durability investigation of a 10‐cell metal bipolar plate proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack

Tian

Chen

et al. 2018

Int J Energy Res

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Summary The metal bipolar plates (BPs) have replaced the graphite BPs in vehicle‐used proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack because of their high volume power density. To investigate the durability of metal BP stack, this paper performed a durability test of 2000 hours on a 10‐cell metal BP fuel cell stack. The degradations of the average voltage and individual cell voltage in fuel cell stack were analyzed. To investigate the degradation mechanism, the stack was disassembled and the morphologies and compositions of no. 1, no. 5, and no. 10 cells after 2000 hours were characterized by SEM, TEM, and ASS. The results indicated that at 800 mA/cm2, the voltage decay rate is 42.303 μV/hour and the voltage decay percentage of the stack is 14.34% after 2000 hours according to the linearly fitting result. According to the US Department of Energy (DOE) definition of fuel cell stack life, only the voltage decay rate of OCV and the tenth cell is lower than the maximum voltage degradation rates of 10 000 hours. The decreases of homogeneity of stack were the main reason for its performance degradation. Especially for the tenth cell, its performance has almost no drop. The main failure reason of this metal BP stack is structural design rather than metal corrosion. The losses of Pt catalyst and C supporting are the main reason of performance degradation.

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Simulation and in situ measurement of stress distribution in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack

Cited by 33 publications

References 28 publications

Effects of mechanical compression on the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and analysis through in-situ characterisation techniques - A review

Effects of mechanical compression on the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and analysis through in-situ characterisation techniques - A review

In Situ and Operando Characterization of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

The durability investigation of a 10‐cell metal bipolar plate proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack

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