Liquid water flooding in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell cathode with an interdigitated design
Simo Kang
Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Biao Zhou
Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4
Biao Zhou, Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor,ON, Canada, N9B 3P4.
E-mail: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorChin-Hsiang Cheng
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan
Search for more papers by this authorHuan-Ruei Shiu
Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 31040
Search for more papers by this authorChun-I Lee
Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 31040
Search for more papers by this authorSimo Kang
Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Biao Zhou
Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4
Biao Zhou, Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor,ON, Canada, N9B 3P4.
E-mail: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorChin-Hsiang Cheng
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan
Search for more papers by this authorHuan-Ruei Shiu
Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 31040
Search for more papers by this authorChun-I Lee
Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 31040
Search for more papers by this authorSUMMARY
In this paper, we studied the liquid water flooding process in the flow field of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with an interdigitated design by using a multi-phase three-dimensional fuel cell cathode side model with a porous layer. The commercial CFD software package fluent (ANSYS Canonsburg, PA, USA) was used with a user-defined function. The results indicate that the general liquid water flooding process inside of this type of cathode design can be classified into three phases (the porous layer phase, the channel phase, and the drainage phase), and the details of liquid water behavior during this flooding process can be well understood and explained using the air–liquid interaction. Also, a liquid water avalanche phenomenon was discovered in this type of cathode design. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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