Title: Investigation of PEMFC performance with various configurations of serpentine and interdigitated flow channel

Authors: V. Lakshminarayanan; P. Karthikeyan

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, KGiSL Institute of Technology, Saravanampatti, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, 641035, India ' Department of Automobile Engineering, PSG College of Engineering, Pelamedu, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, 641004, India

Abstract: The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance is influenced by design and operating parameters such as rib to channel width ratio, the depth of the channel, the number of passes on the flow channel, operating pressure, temperature, relative humidity and the inlet gases stoichiometric ratio. In this paper, the PEMFC performance in an effective area of 25 cm² with various ribs to channel width ratios (R: C - 1:1, 1:2, 2:1 and 2:2) on serpentine and interdigitated flow channels were investigated numerically and experimentally. The numerical and experimental maximum power density deviation of serpentine and interdigitated flow channel results with R:C - 1:2 were found to be 12.16% and 12.2% respectively.

Keywords: rib to channel width ratio; operating parameters; stoichiometric ratio; design parameters; serpentine flow channel; interdigitated flow channel; PEMFC; fuel cell; performance; power density.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2019.102039

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2019 Vol.19 No.5, pp.328 - 336

Accepted: 20 Dec 2017
Published online: 04 Sep 2019 *

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