In this paper, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study in a proton exchange membrane fuel cellmodel with different flow field designs is presented. The study was carried out to investigate the effectscaused by serpentine, parallel, interdigitated and spiral channel configurations on the performance offuel cells. An active area of 24 cm2 for all flow fields was considered. From a commercial CFD codethat solves governing equations and an electrochemical model, local distributions of pressure,temperature, species, proton conductivity and current density contours were obtained. The numericalresults were analyzed in detail and showed the contribution of each transport phenomenon to theelectrochemical reactions that take place inside of the fuel cell. The simulations were carried out withoperating conditions of a pressure of 3 atm, a temperature of 353 K and a relative humidity of 100%.The numerical results demonstrated that the spiral flow field is better than the other tested designsbecause it homogeneously distributes the species over the entire active area of the cell, which allows abetter distribution of temperature and proton conductivity in the membrane and catalyst layer,respectively, favoring mass and energy transport through the fuel cell.
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