Stack Cooling Profile of an Air-Cooled 3-Cell Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Stack

摘要

A locally designed, 3-cell closed cathode PEM fuel cell stack was developed as a platform for thermal engineering studies. Stack polarization behavior is combined with thermal behavior analysis to identify the cooling profiles of an air-cooled fuel cell stack under variable load and cooling settings. The objective of the study is to identify the bulk thermal effects of the stack under cooling for further consideration in fuel cell system control development. The stack is designed with 40 cooling channels and tests were conducted with airflows in the range between 200 and 400 Reynolds number. Different fan settings are applied to analyze the response of the design to negative and positive pressure airflows. The temperature measurements are translated into an averaged stack temperature and a subsequent second order thermal analysis showed that an exponential cooling trend is obtained. Analytical evaluation on the dynamic cooling rates relative to response time and cooling trend is also performed and reported.