Proton exchange membrane fuel cell multi-physical dynamics and stack spatial non-homogeneity analyses

This paper presents a multi-physical dynamic fuel cell stack model. This model covers three major physical domains: electrical, fluidic and thermal. The dynamic model in each domain is presented. The fuel cell stack model is obtained by stacking method from a generalized single cell model, thus the spatial effect through the stack can be modelled and observed. The stack model is validated temporally and spatially against a Ballard NEXA 1.2 kW 47 cells fuel cell stack. Then, the dynamic behaviour in each physical domain is analysed. It can be approximated by a first order system, thus the expressions of time constants in different domain are obtained. Finally, the fuel cell stack spatial non-homogeneity is analysed. From the results, a fuel cell stack model reduction method is proposed in order to reduce the computation time during simulations. The reduced fuel cell stack model is validated against the full model. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.