An efficient two-grid method for a two-phase mixed-domain model of polymer exchange membrane fuel cell

In this paper, an efficient and fast numerical method is studied and implemented for a simplified two-phase mixed-domain model of polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which fully incorporates both the anode and cathode sides, including the conservation equations of mass, momentum, water vapor concentration, liquid water saturation and water content. The proposed numerical algorithm is based on the two-grid discretization technique, the combined finite element-upwind finite volume method and some other appropriate linearization schemes. The original nonlinear partial differential equations are only solved on the coarse grid while the fine grid approximation solution is obtained linearly. Therefore the computational time can be reduced tremendously compared with the traditional one-grid method. Numerical experiments of the two-grid method and conventional method for a two-phase mixed-domain fuel cell model are carried out, showing that the presented method is effective and accurate for the numerical simulation of PEMFC.