Model based water management diagnosis in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Water management diagnosis in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is of great importance. The water produced in the fuel cell affects its performance and lifetime through the current distribution and the two phase flow pattern in the channel. The aim of the present study is to modify a segmented model in order to investigate a model-based water management diagnosis at different operating conditions. Simulations are conducted in three current densities: low (0.2 A/cm(2)), medium (0.6 A/cm(2)) and high (1 A/cm(2)), four temperatures ranged from 40 to 70, two stoichiometries (2 and 3) and four inlet humidities 25%, 50%,75% and 100%). The results show that at fully saturation inlet condition, there is a uniform local current density for all three considered current densities. Also, two-phase pressure drop and output voltage have similar trends. Hence two phase pressure drop can be considered as a suitable criterion for water management diagnosis. At inlet humidities less than 50%, non-uniformity of local current density increases that leads to reduction of less than 50%, non-uniformity of local current density increases that leads to reduction of output voltage, especially at high current density. Generally, for non-saturated inlet condition, two phase pressure drop and output voltage may show different trends. Therefore, two-phase pressure drop can be used only as a criterion for the formation of water and not for water management diagnosis. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.