Forming Metallic Micro-Feature Bipolar Plates for Fuel Cell Using Combined Hydroforming and Stamping Processes

Fuel cell constitutes from different components, among which bipolar plates are the important and expensive part. Nowadays, the fabrication methods of bipolar plates are the main challenges in fuel cell technology. Among different methods, the fabrication of bipolar plates from metal forming processes is the best selection. Recently, hydroforming is one of these methods that are used in fabrication of these plates. On the other hand, there are different layouts of flow fields for various usages. These layouts can be categorized, in forming viewpoint, to two distinct groups; one of them is the simple group (e.g. serpentine or parallel flow fields) and the other is the complex group (e.g. pattern and pin type flow fields). This paper investigate on feasibility of a hybrid micro-manufacturing process to fabricate fuel cell metallic bipolar plates that consists of multi-array pin type flow field on a large surface area. First, several forming methods for formation of bipolar plates in the FEM software (ABAQUS 6.10) were simulated. Second, the best method for actual fabrication of metallic bipolar plates without any rupture or defect was hydroformed. The results indicated that the complex flow field metallic bipolar plates can be formed adequately using the combined hydroforming and stamping (sizing) processes.