Effect of operating conditions of unmanned aerial vehicle powered by PEMFC on water and heat distributions of cell

The cell performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)-driven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is affected by environmental changes during high-altitude flights. Therefore, the distribution of water and heat in a PEMFC was investigated. The result showed that the uniformity of temperature distribution on the membrane could be improved by increasing the air stoichiometry ratio, but the temperature difference on the membrane was still large and the minimum temperature difference was 14.6 degrees C. When the temperature distribution is uniform, the temperature on the membrane is too low. Consequently, increasing the inlet temperature to 60 degrees C, 70 degrees C and 80 degrees C resulted in inlet and outlet temperature differences of 3.5 degrees C, 0.5 degrees C and 2.7 degrees C for the membrane respectively. By analyzing the distribution of the water content and temperature on the membranes, 70 degrees C and 20 were considered to be the optimal inlet temperature and air stoichiometry, respectively. Under this condition, as the altitude increases, the temperature and water content on the membrane gradually decrease.