Numerical simulations of a full-scale polymer electrolyte fuel cell with analysing systematic performance in an automotive application

•A 3-D full-scale fuel cell performance is numerically simulated.•Generated and consumed power in the system is affected by operating condition.•Systematic analysis predicts the net power of conceptual PEFC stack.

In fuel cell powered electric vehicles, the net power efficiency is a critical factor in terms of fuel economy and commercialization. Although the fuel cell stack produces enough power to drive the vehicles, the transferred power to the power train could be significantly reduced due to the power consumption to operate the system components of air blower and cooling module. Thus the systematic analysis on the operating condition of the fuel cell stack is essential to predict the net power generation. In this paper numerical simulation is conducted to characterize the fuel cell performance under various operating conditions. Three dimensional and full-scale fuel cell of the active area of 355 cm2 is numerically modelled with 47.3 million grids to capture the complexities of the fluid dynamics, heat transfer and electrochemical reactions. The proposed numerical model requires large computational time and cost, however, it can be powerful to reasonably predict the fuel cell system performance at the early stage of conceptual design without requiring prototypes. Based on the model, it has been shown that the net power is reduced down to 90% of the gross power due to the power consumption of air blower and cooling module.