Poster Presentation

Prof. Sang Soon Hwang, University of Incheon, Korea
Mr. Son Ah Cho, University of Incheon, Korea
Mr. Pil Hyong Lee, University of Incheon, Korea
Mr. Sang Seok Han, University of Incheon, Korea
Mr. Ja Ye Koo, Korea Aerospace University, Korea

To assure optimal performance of the PEMFC and provide proper heat management of the fuel cell, it is of crucial importance to investigate the characteristics of fuel cell temperature distribution. In this paper, three-dimensional non-isothermal numerical simulation of the PEMFC was developed including the energy equation with all heat source terms such as heat generation due to entropy change from electrochemical reaction and irreversible heat release attributed to ohmic and activation polarization, as well as heat release by water formation. In results by simulation, it is found that temperature of catalyst layer is higher than other components temperature of fuel cell. And the maximum temperature in the through-plane direction appears at the catalyst layer of the cathode, which means the main heat is generated at that layer because the reaction heat from water formation reaction at the cathode is dominant. Permeability of the gas diffusion layer plays a very significant role in thermal management and mass transfer. So more heat is generated because of the high diffusion rate of reactants into the catalyst layer in case of the high permeability. In this paper, we analyzed effects of permeability of GDL on heat source terms and Nusselt number and temperature distribution. Numerical results indicate that temperature difference along the channel decreased with decreasing permeability but begins to maintain a constant value below a threshold permeability, and also that heat generation has almost the same dependency on permeability as does temperature difference.

Poster presentation: Future powertrain solutions

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