Simple and Complex Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Stack Models: A Comparison

摘要

In this paper, two distinct polymer electrolyte fuel cell stack models are constructed: a detailed numerical model (DNM) employing a fine-scale computational mesh and a coarse-mesh approach based on a distributed resistance analogy (DRA) where diffusion terms in the transport equations are replaced by rate terms. Both methods are applied to a 5-cell, high-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cell stack with an active area of 200 cm~2 per cell. The polarization curve and local current density distributions from both the DRA and DNM are compared with experimental data, finding good agreement. Temperature, pressure, Nernst potential, and species distributions are also exhibited. The DNM displays details of fine-scale local extrema not captured by the DRA; however, the latter requires orders of magnitude less computer processor power and memory for execution. Both methods provide much finer-scale results than present experimental techniques.