Analysis of coolant flow and temperature distribution within PEM fuel cell stack

In the present study, a mathematical model is developed for investigation of coolant flow and temperature distribution within PEMFC stack. The model consists of two main sub models: (1) a coolant flow distribution model, which is used to determine the coolant mass flow distribution between different cooling flow fields of the fuel cell stack; and (2) a thermal model, which computes the coolant temperature increase along the flow field and also the temperature distribution within each cell of the stack. A parametric analysis is also conducted on the effect of different parameters on stack temperature uniformity. The cross sectional area of manifolds, dimensions of coolant flow field channels and total coolant flow rate in U and Z stack configurations are selected as the design parameters and their optimum values are obtained by compromising between more temperature uniformity and less pressure drop