The effect of inclined radial flow in proton exchange membrane fuel cells performance

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics analysis was employed to investigate the radial flow field patterns of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) with different channel geometries at high operating current densities. 3D, non-isothermal was used with single straight channel geometry. Our study showed that new generation of fuel cells with circle stack with the same active area and inlet area gave higher current density compared with conventional model. the main factors that affect the behavior of each of the curves are discussed. Species and temperature contours are presented for the new model, showing how the fuel cell behavior is affected by species penetration due to increasing inlet and outlet in one mono cell (four inlet and out let) with inclined in the radial channel configuration.Velocity trends are presented for the two different models, showing how the fuel cell behavior is affected by the velocity variations in the radial configuration. Thus, the results presented here suggest that the radial geometry is a strong candidate for the near-future development of the fuel cell technology