Thermal Coupling in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stacks (original) (raw)

Abstract

The authors develop a model of steady state thermal transfer in proton exchange membrane fuel cell stacks. The model is appropriate for straight coolant channel unit cell designs and considers quantities averaged over the cross-channel direction, ignoring the impact of the gas and coolant channel geometries. At steady state and under the as- sumption that the membrane and electrodes are innitesimally thin, a simple description can be made of the temperature distribution in the cells. The model provides estimates on two important quantities: the local temperature dierence between coolant and membrane, and the spread of heat from an anomalously hot cell to its neighbours in a stack environment. The former question is easy to address after the model is presented. The latter requires small argument Laplace Transform asymptotics that correspond to a large scaled heat transfer coecient to the coolant channels. Results of computational approximation of the model are also shown and compared to the asymptotics.

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