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ISSN Druckformat: 2150-3621
ISSN Online: 2150-363X
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PHASE FIELD LATTICE BOLTZMANN SIMULATIONS OF WATER DROPLET TRANSPORT IN A PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE FUEL CELL FLOW CHANNEL
ABSTRAKT
The work involves the simulations of liquid water transport in the cathode gas flow channel of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The in-house developed phase-field multiphase lattice Boltzmann solver uses the model proposed by Zheng et al. (2006) as it handles multiphase flow without the loss of the advantages of the lattice Boltzmann method. The model captures the interface by the solution of the Cahn-Hilliard equation. Different liquid water flow patterns are captured from the 3D multiphase simulations for various values of capillary number, gas flow velocity, and wettability of gas diffusion layer and flow channel surfaces. The water removal rate and gas diffusion layer surface area coverage and the droplet detachment rate for each case are studied from simulations. It is seen that at a higher gas flow velocity, for water inflow from a single pore opening, the water slug from the pore opening elongates due to the shear of gas cross flow and develops into a steady continuous stream. Conversely, if the gas flow velocity is low, water removal is through the intermittent droplet detachment process. Simulations show that the gas diffusion layer surface coverage by liquid water can be significantly controlled with hydro-philic channel walls, although it may reduce the water removal rate.
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