Design And Optimization Of Cooling Flow Field For Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Hydrogen energy,as a new type of clean energy,has great potential to replace fossil fuels.Proton exchange membrane fuel cells,as a type of hydrogen energy cell,are electrochemical reaction devices that directly convert the chemical energy of hydrogen and oxidants into electrical energy,heat,and reaction products.Fuel cells release a large amount of heat during operation,and if the heat cannot be discharged in a timely manner,its service life will be reduced.Therefore,cooling plates need to be installed between fuel cell units to regulate temperature,and the design of the flow channel distribution of the cooling plates is the most important factor affecting the heat transfer performance of the cooling plates.Designed various flow channel distribution forms for the cooling plates of proton exchange membrane fuel cells,and conducted numerical simulations using finite element simulation methods.Based on the post-processing images and data,performance analysis was conducted to compare traditional cooling flow fields and seek methods to improve the performance of fuel cell cooling plates by optimizing the flow field structure.Research has found that optimizing designs such as multi-channel design,multi helical flow field design,honeycomb flow field design,and increasing the flow rate of cooling media can improve the temperature performance of the cooling plate.The cooling flow field with uniform plates at the inlet and outlet can alleviate the high temperature problem of fuel cells,reduce the pressure drop of the cooling medium,reduce local flow resistance,and improve the flow stability of the fluid.The design of a parallelogram lattice can improve heat transfer performance because it conforms to fluid flow characteristics and is less prone to vortex and reflux.Analyzed the shortcomings of the traditional cooling plate channel distribution form,combined with the performance characteristics of each flow field,the flow field was divided into four regions and divided into four different cooling flow field forms to design the overall structure of fuel cells.A cooling flow field distribution form with better heat transfer performance was obtained,and the flow distribution and flow direction of the fuel cell cooling medium were optimized.Finally,the structure of the cooling plate was optimized using orthogonal optimization design,and the values of the block width,inlet width,and channel section length of the fuel cell were obtained when the cooling flow field was optimized for different performance indicators.The sensitivity of experimental factors was compared.