Increasing the Performance of a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Using in AirIndependence Propulsion System with Optimization Reactants Flow Field

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell is widely used as a new source of energy that is clean andenvironmentally friendly. Among different flow field channel designs used in PEM fuel cells, serpentinechannels are the most common because of their high performance. In this manner, many studies focused onimproving serpentine channel designs and diminishing the disadvantages such as high pressure drop. Inthis study, firstly, a numerical validation is performed with an experimental study to ensure the accuracy ofthe solution. Then, it is tried to find the optimum serpentine channel design by comparing inspired andnovel serpentine designs. Two novel serpentine designs are proposed for the first time in the present studywhich is inspired by reviewing the literature, and three other serpentine designs are directly used from theliterature. Five channel designs are compared by analyzing the resulting I-V curve, generated water, andperformance evaluation criteria. Two evaluation criteria are used to ensure the superiority of the optimumserpentine design. The results revealed that the new proposed designs show better performances than thebase serpentine channels. Also, the selected efficient designs indicated good performances, with the wavedserpentine design showing the best performance due to the variable channel depth structure.

کلیدواژه ها:

PEM fuel cell ، water management ، gas flow field ، evaluation criteria.