Simulation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell cooling plates under different heat fluxes

Abstract

Thermal management has a crucial role in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) to prevent the reduction of electrochemical reactions and membrane breakup. This paper presents a numerical modeling of the cooling plates and their integrated cooling channels and investigates heat removal performance in parallel (laminar) and serpentine (turbulent) flow fields by four distribution of position-dependent heat fluxes generated in PEMFCs. The generating heat, a current density function, is applied to the cooling plate. The results indicated that the distribution of the current density in the PEMFC, and consequently the heat flux distribution to the cooling plate impacts the PEMFC thermal performance. The transition from parallel to serpentine flow fields affects the thermal performance differently. Among the evaluated turbulence models the k-ɛ model demonstrated good predictive accuracy. The serpentine flow plate showed a 50 % lower maximum temperature difference at the studied surface in some cases. However, the pressure drop increases up to 930 kPa in the serpentine channel at the highest simulated water mass flow rate in comparison to the parallel flow field. All the temperature variables experienced lower values by applying serpentine flow filed over the parallel. The uniformity index considered as a final key parameter defining a more homogenous temperature distribution in PEMFC improved by 68 % maximum for serpentine flow field with turbulent flow. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd