Cooling Design for PEM Fuel-Cell Stacks Employing Air and Metal Foam: Simulation and Experiment

A new study investigating the cooling efficacy of air flow inside open-cell metal foam embedded in aluminum models fuel-cell stacks is described. model based on a commercial stack was simulated and tested experimentally. This has three proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, each having an active area 100 cm2, with total output power 500 W. The state-of-the-art this employs water serpentine channels. design current investigation replaces these channels actual cells plates. constant heat flux plates equivalent to maximum dissipation stack. Forced employed as coolant. used had open-pore size 0.65 mm after-compression porosity 60%. Local temperatures pumping were calculated for various air-flow velocities range 0.2–1.5 m/s by numerical simulation determined experiments. speed corresponds Reynolds number hydraulic diameter 87.6–700.4. Internal external investigated. In simulations, thermal energy equations solved invoking local non-equilibrium model—a more realistic treatment airflow foam. Good agreement between experiment obtained temperatures. As predicted experimentally, there average difference about 18.3%. been attributed poor correlation CFD package (ANSYS) pressure drop points viability employing systems.