Thermal Modeling And Software Development Of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Fuel cell is a new energy resources technology to solve the environment pollution and the lack of energy resources. The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has become the hotspot of new energy resources and power technology development in the twenty-first century because its advantages, such as low noise, zero pollution, without eroding, long lifetime, high power density, high efficiency, safety, stability and so on To research of PEMFC, thermal modeling and software development of PEMFC are the important aspects.In this article, the mathematic models related to PEMFC are expatiated, and a two-dimension model with single channel, a three-dimension model with semi-channel, a three-dimension model with single channel are build, which are applied to analyze and discuss the thermal questions.The basic functions including the flow, mass-transfer and heat-transfer in Fluent are applied to the two-dimension model with single channel and the three-dimension model with semi-channel. The results show that zone of high temperature exists in the catalyst of cathode; the temperature of membrane electrode assembled is lower than 1 K and the temperature underside the channel changes more obviously than the bank in the cell.The PEMFC module of Fluent, which involves the flow, mass-transfer, heat-transfer, electrochemistry, water-transfer, is used in three-dimension model with single channel to simulate. The results show that the main heat sources consist of chemical reaction's heat and over-potential heat. The distributions of heat sources are uneven in cell, and chemical reaction's heat and over-potential heat is in the catalyst layer, but the ohm's heat exists in membrane mostly. The temperature filed is uneven either. The maximal temperature is in the inlet of cathode and the temperature underside the channel higher than the bank in the cell. The temperature field becomes more uneven with the current density's rise; the temperature field is treated as even in case of the low current density. The performance curves from simulationare compared with the experiment, and they agree well.The speedup performance of Fluent in the parallel computing is tested and evaluated, and the results show that Fluent have the better parallel performance in the High Performance Parallel Cluster and its speedup rate arrives at 10 under 16 CPUs. The software development that is base on the User Difined Function of Fluent increases precision of the simulation.The thermal simulation and software development of PEMFC are two important aspects of studying PEMFC, which give a scientific guide and software supporting to the thermal management of PEMFC. Software development will perfect the function of PEMFC and provide it with a more precise tool.