This paper studied the breakthrough pressure for liquid water to penetrate the gas diffusion layer(GDL) of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC).An ex-situ testing was conducted on a transparent test cell to visualize the water droplet formation and detachment on the surface of different types of GDLs through a CCD camera.The breakthrough pressure,at which the liquid water penetrates the GDL and starts to form a droplet,was measured.The breakthrough pressure was found to be different for the GDLs with different porosities and thicknesses.The equilibrium pressure,which is defined as the minimum pressure required maintaining a constant flow through the GDL,was also recorded.The equilibrium pressure was found to be much lower than the breakthrough pressure for the same type of GDL.A pore network model was modified to further study the relationship between the breakthrough pressure and the GDL properties and thicknesses.The breakthrough pressure increases for the thick GDL with smaller micro-pore size.
The heat generation model and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model for lithium ion cells were established with boundary conditions defined.In order to provide a better insight about the behaviors of high-power lithium ion cells under realistic discharge conditions,the temperature difference of the cells and an active thermal management system with a pure air-cooling mode were analyzed and predicted with the factors affecting the unevenness of temperature field discussed.The results show a significant effect of the cooling flow rate on the temperature rise of the cells for all discharge rates.Average surface temperatures are relatively uniform at lower discharge rate that makes it easier to control the temperature of the pack.Cell temperatures are expected to rise significantly toward the end of discharge and they show non-uniformity at higher discharge rates.Adequate air flow rate of active cooling is required at high discharge rate and high ambient temperature for practical pack thermal management system.
Gas diffusion layer(GDL) plays a great important role in proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC).Water transport mechanism in GDL is still not clear.In the present study,an ex-situ transparent setup is built to visualize the transport phenomena and to measure the threshold pressure of water in GDL at different temperatures.It is found that the relationship between the breakthrough pressure and the temperature is nearly linear(i.e.the pressure decreases linearly with the increase of temperature).To avoid the problems faced by the continuum models,the pore network model is developed to simulate the liquid water transport through the carbon paper.A uniform pressure boundary condition is used in simulation and the results are similar to the ones obtained in the experiment.The reason is that the contact angle and surface tension coefficient of water in GDLs change accordingly with the change of temperature.
