In this paper, the effects of conventional rectangular parallel, regular hexagonal parallel, and hexagonal honeycomb-like flow fields on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells （PEMFC） are simulated. The polarization curve, distribution of oxygen and water, current density of membrane, and pressure drop and parasitic power density are analyzed. It is found that the regular hexagonal flow field shows a better output performance, and the current density of the hexagonal honeycomb-like flow field is 11.28% and 4.95% higher than that of the conventional parallel and regular hexagonal parallel flow fields, respectively. In addition, the oxygen non-uniformity of the conventional rectangular parallel, regular hexagonal parallel and hexagonal honeycomb-like flow channels are 0.64, 0.53 and 0.41, and the honeycomb-like flow field shows a better distribution capacity of water and current density of membrane, which further indicates that the regular hexagonal flow field alleviates the problem of non-uniform distribution of oxygen, water, and current density of membrane. Although the pressure drop of the hexagonal honeycomb-like flow field is increased by 40.0% and 27.7% compared with the conventional rectangular parallel and the regular hexagonal parallel flow fields and the parasitic power density is higher, the maximum net output power density is still abtained.
Key words
proton exchange membrane fuel cells /
flow field /
numerical simulation /
structural optimization
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