An Engineering Toolbox for the Evaluation of Metallic Flow Field Plates

Abstract

Metallic flow field plates, also called bipolar plates, are an important component of fuel cell stacks, electrolyzers, hydrogen purification and compression stacks. The manufacturing of these plates by means of stamping or hydroforming is highly suitable for mass production. In this work, a toolbox is created that is suitable for a screening process of different flow field design variants. For this purpose, the geometry and computational mesh are generated in an automated manner. Basic building blocks are combined using the open source software SALOME, and these allow for the construction of a large variant of serpentine-like flow field structures. These geometric variants are evaluated through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with the open source software OpenFOAM. The overall procedure allows for the screening of more than 100 variants within one week using a standard desktop computer. The performance of the flow fields is evaluated on the basis of two parameters: the overall pressure difference across the plate and the relative difference of the hydrogen concentration at the outlet of the channels. The results of such a screening first provide information about optimum channel geometry and the best choice of the general flow field layout. Such results are important at the beginning of the design process, as the channel geometry has an influence on the selection of the metal for deep drawing or hydroforming processes.

Design and Modeling of Metallic Bipolar Plates for a Fuel Cell Range Extender

“…A variation in the specific permeability will lead to a modification of the total pressure difference. It was shown in a previous study by Reimer et al [60] that there exist two different scenarios. As long as the channel depth is larger than the GDL thickness, the impact of permeability on ∆p is low.…”

“…The CFD simulations were carried out using the free software package OpenFOAM [61,62]. For geometry and mesh generation, the toolbox of Reimer et al [60] was employed, which relies on the free software SALOME [63] and generates flow fields for half cell configurations, i.e., channels and porous transport layer. The toolbox was extended to automatically generate the three different channel configurations shown in Figure 7.…”

“…This choice was made in order to reduce the model complexity. A more in depth discussion can be found in the study by Reimer et al [60]. In summary, the model uses a rectangular cross section which features the same hydraulic diameter as the 'real channel'.…”

A Comparative Study of Effect of Bipolar Plate Materials on Contact Resistance and Heat Transfer in a PEMFC Stack

“…Indeed, the thickness of the metal plates is very thin compared to the graphite plates. In case of a trapezoidal canalization, Figure 4 shows the cross-sectional area Ac and the hydraulic diameter Dh are given as follow [32]:…”