Li Yuting, Bi Jingliang, Tang Miao, Lu Gui
School of Energy Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China.
CNNC Key Laboratory on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics Technology, Nuclear Power Institute of China, Chengdu 610213, China.
Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Apr 24;13(5):665. doi: 10.3390/mi13050665.
The flow channel design of bipolar plates plays a significant role in the proton exchange membrane fuel cells operation, particularly in thermal and water management. The pursuit of low-pressure drop supply and flow field uniformity in PEM fuel cells has not stopped, resulting in numerous new bipolar plate flow channel designs. The biomimetic leaf vein shape-based flow channel and lung flow channel designs can significantly improve gas supply uniformity and reduce pressure drop. Therefore, we propose a snowflake-shaped bionic channel design by integrating the advantages of the leaf vein shape and lung shape channel. A 3D multi-physics fuel cell model is used to verify the feasibility and superiority of the bionic snowflake design in improving fuel cell performance, especially in reducing the pumping work. The local pressure distribution, oxygen distribution, water distribution, and current density distribution are used to reveal the enhancement mechanism of the new snowflake flow channel. The flow uniformity is further enhanced by using multi-objective (13 target parameters) and multi-parameter (18 independent variables) genetic algorithm optimization. The general goal of this work is to provide a new strategy for the thermal and water management of PEM fuel cells.
双极板的流道设计在质子交换膜燃料电池运行中起着重要作用，特别是在热管理和水管理方面。对质子交换膜燃料电池中低压降供应和流场均匀性的追求从未停止，从而产生了众多新型双极板流道设计。基于仿生叶脉形状的流道和肺部流道设计能够显著提高气体供应均匀性并降低压降。因此，我们通过整合叶脉形状和肺部形状流道的优势，提出了一种雪花形状的仿生流道设计。采用三维多物理场燃料电池模型来验证仿生雪花设计在改善燃料电池性能，特别是在减少泵送功方面的可行性和优越性。利用局部压力分布、氧气分布、水分布和电流密度分布来揭示新型雪花流道的增强机制。通过使用多目标（13个目标参数）和多参数（18个自变量）遗传算法优化，进一步提高了流动均匀性。这项工作的总体目标是为质子交换膜燃料电池的热管理和水管理提供一种新策略。
