Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10567364 | Journal of Power Sources | 2005 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
The current work investigates laminar channel flow in square serpentine channels mounted on a permeable gas diffusion media (GDM) as in the case of a PEM fuel cell. Computational fluid dynamics is used to determine the importance of convective transport as a function of GDM permeability. Both isotropic and orthotropic permeabilities are considered and it is found that the in-plane permeability is the parameter of importance. For typical flow field dimensions and fuel cell operating conditions, it is found that convective transport will occur in the GDM when the permeability exceeds 1Ã10â13âm2. This value is lower than that reported experimentally, meaning that convection is significant in fuel cell GDM. Currently, virtually all fuel cell modelling work either implicitly or explicitly ignores this effect. Finally, it is noted that the in-plane permeability is the relevant parameter in these configurations. This is particularly relevant in the case of GDM with micro-porous layers which decrease the through-plane permeability by several orders of magnitude but do not change in the in-plane permeability.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemistry
Electrochemistry
Authors
J.G. Pharoah,