Improving the Performance of PEM Fuel Cell by Varying the Number of Flow Channels

A fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy, water, and heat through electrochemical reactions. The water formation cause major problem and it affects performance of fuel cell. In PEM fuel cell excess and least amount of water level may reduces the performance and the efficiency of the fuel cell. The performance of PEM fuel cell mainly depends on flow parameters and design parameters. In this project, the number of pass of serpentine type flow channel was varied and their performances were calculated. The complete model of PEM fuel cell with single, two & three pass serpentine type flow channels were modeled using SOLID WORKS & AUTOCAD software packages, the surface meshing was done using ANSA software, volume meshing was done using TGRID software and analysis was done using ANSYS FLUENT 13.0 software. From the analysis, it was found that the three pass serpentine type flow channel gave better performance, when compared to single pass and two pass flow channels. M. Saravanan | R. Girimurugan"Improving the Performance of PEM Fuel Cell by Varying the Number of Flow Channels" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-1 , December 2017, URL: http://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd5975.pdf http://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/mechanical-engineering/5975/improving-the-performance-of-pem-fuel-cell-by--varying-the-number-of-flow-channels/m-saravanan