International Journal of Energy Research, Vol.42, No.14, 4439-4457, 2018
Dynamic contact angle effects on gas-liquid transport phenomena in proton exchange membrane fuel cell cathode with parallel design
Among the numerical studies on liquid water transport in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), the static contact angle (SCA) model is generally used, while the dynamic contact angle (DCA) model is only applied on the simulation of droplet behaviors with simple geometries like a single microchannel. In this study, for the first time, the DCA model is used to study the gas-liquid phenomena inside the cathode of PEMFC with parallel flow field design, ie, Parallel-DCA model. The water emerging and transport processes are simulated on the basis of this Parallel-DCA model using the volume of fluid method. The DCA effects are investigated by comparing the numerical results to those from the Parallel-SCA model with the same computational domain and operating conditions and the experiment from an available literature as well. It is indicated that the water distribution pattern from the Parallel-DCA model is more similar to the experimental results, showing the potential of DCA model to be applied in the simulation of water management in PEMFCs with complex flow field designs. The general water transport, water emerging process, and draining process from the Parallel-DCA and Parallel-SCA models are presented and discussed.