Flow sharing and turbulence phenomena in proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack headers

The distribution of the gas flow in a PEMFC stack is of paramount importance to the stacks performance and lifetime. Uneven flow distribution influences the flow rate through each cell, which in turn causes uneven distribution of the current flow of the entire cell stack and ultimately reduces the performance of the fuel cell stack. In this work, different simulation methods are compared, and large eddy simulations are selected to investigate the flow characteristics in a model stack and study the effects of operating conditions on flow sharing. The simulation results indicate different flow patterns in the inlet header and outlet header; the former features a turbulent entrance region that progressively transits to a laminar region, whereas the latter exhibits a complex flow with jets mixing downstream. Moreover, the flow patterns and distributions for different inlet/outlet configurations, i.e., U-type and Z-type, are investigated. The distribution of the flow through the unit cells for both configurations is different. The Z-type arrangement offers a more uniform flow distribution and has a smaller number of fluctuations than the U-type. The effects of different inlet flow velocity and jet inflow pattern are also studied. The findings from this work can provide guidelines to improve header design. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.