Numerical Simulation of Gas Flow with Electrochemical Reaction in a Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell

The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the performance of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (PEFC). The investigation involved understanding the mechanism of cross flow and pressure drop, addressing the contribution of cross flow on the performance, and water transport through the membrane. Computational fluid dynamics was used to study the gas flow behavior in the flow channel and porous media and information learned from the fluid dynamics study is used to design the artificial cross flow in the parallel flow field. At the beginning of the research, it was analyzed the mechanism of pressure drop and cross flow behavior in a single serpentine channel and gas diffusion layer. The dependency of physical parameters (e.g. porosity, permeability) and geometrical parameters such as gas channel pitch length and GDL thickness on the cross flow and pressure drop was studied vastly. It was explained pressure drop characteristics at the straight part of a serpentine channel and at the bend region. The role of cross flow on the pressure distribution in the gas channel also has been identified. Finally we concluded that the cross flow suppressed the pressure gradient in the straight part of serpentine channel and pressure gradient was maximum a