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Numerical investigation of water droplet behavior in anode channel of a PEM fuel cell with partial blockage

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Abstract

In this paper, water droplet behavior and its removal process in the anode gas flow channel (GFC) of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) with partial blockage are numerically investigated using a three-dimensional volume of fluid model. The governing equations are solved using the finite volume method. The effects of the droplet emergence location (\(\alpha )\), blockage ratio (\(\beta )\), longitudinal ratio (\(\gamma )\), contact angle (\(\theta )\) and current density on the water management characteristics, such as droplet shape, removal time, instantaneous and time-averaged pressure drop and water coverage ratio (WCR), are studied. Researchers have already considered the blocking effect on the PEMFC performance without considering the water droplet movement, but the results of the present study show that blocking the GFC has a significant influence on the behavior of water droplet and water management characteristics. As a result, in some cases, pressure drop fluctuation is increased up to 140% in the anode channel. It is also found that by decreasing \(\alpha \) and increasing \(\beta \) and \(\gamma \) individually, the removal time was decreased and the pressure drop increased. Furthermore, our results showed that blockage in the anode channel has a little effect on WCR.

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Abbreviations

F :

Volume of fluid

\(F_{v}^{\mathrm{st}}\) :

Surface tension force per unit volume (N/m\(^{\mathrm {3}})\)

H :

Channel height (mm)

h :

Block height (mm)

I :

Unit tensor

L :

Channel length (mm)

l :

Block length (mm)

\(l'\) :

Distance of droplet center from the channel inlet (mm)

N :

Unit vector

\(n_{w}\) :

Normal vector on the wall

p :

Pressure (Pa)

\(p_{\mathrm{in}}\) :

Inlet total pressure (Pa)

\(p_{\mathrm{out}}\) :

Outlet total pressure (Pa)

R :

Droplet radius (\(\mu \)m)

t :

Time (msec)

\(t_{w}\) :

Tangent vector on the wall

T :

Capillary tensor (N/m\(^{\mathrm {2}})\)

u :

Velocity vector (m/s)

:

Volume (m\(^{\mathrm {3}})\)

\(x, y\) :

Cartesian coordinates (m)

X\(_{\mathrm {C}}\) :

Horizontal position of droplet mass center (mm)

\(\alpha \) :

Droplet emergence location

\(\beta \) :

Blockage ratio

\(\mathrm {\delta }\) :

Ratio of droplet diameter to channel width

\(\gamma \) :

Longitudinal ratio

\(\theta _{d}\) :

Contact angle (degree)

\(\rho \) :

Mixture density (kg/m\(^{\mathrm {3}})\)

\(\mu \) :

Mixture dynamic viscosity (kg/m.s)

\(\Sigma \) :

Surface tension coefficient (N/m)

\(\Delta p\) :

Pressure drop (Pa)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-111, Iran

    Ramin Jazmi, Kazem Mohammadzadeh, Hassan Khaleghi & Reza Maddahian

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  1. Ramin Jazmi
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  2. Kazem Mohammadzadeh
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  3. Hassan Khaleghi
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Correspondence to Hassan Khaleghi.

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Jazmi, R., Mohammadzadeh, K., Khaleghi, H. et al. Numerical investigation of water droplet behavior in anode channel of a PEM fuel cell with partial blockage. Arch Appl Mech 91, 1391–1406 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00419-020-01828-7

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