Structural design of serpentine gas channel in fuel cell

الملخص EN

Fuel and oxidant gas delivery plate, or fuel cell plate, is a key component of a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell.

To develop low-cost and high performance fuel cell plates, advanced computer modeling and finite element structure analysis are used as useful tools for the optimization of the plates at the early design stage.In a fuel cell application, these fuel cell plates are routinely heated up to 80oC with structure pressure loads.

The temperature induced thermal stresses is found to be much higher that the structure loading stress.

Thus, the thermal stresses plays a key role in the structure design and optimization of the plates.To carry out the analysis, a model of the serpentine plate is analyzed using finite element analysis model for both linear and nonlinear elasticity analysis.

Design optimization is applied to minimize the maximum stress within the plate, subject to constraint with both geometry and material parameters as design variables.

The study reveals the characteristics of the printed plates, and provides guidelines for the structure and material design of the fuel cell plate.