1D modelling of fuel cell losses including the water and thermal management

To study the functioning of a fuel cell and optimize its operating parameters to achieve the best efficiency in operation it is important to have a robust fuel cell model that can simulate the behavior of the fuel cell stack under various operating conditions. The operating voltage of the fuel cell at different current densities depends upon thermodynamic parameters like temperature and pressure of the reactants as well factors like the state of humidification of the electrolyte membrane. A 1D model is developed to capture the variation in voltage at different current densities due to internal losses and changes to operating conditions like temperature and pressure. Additionally since the stack temperature and moisture content within the stack influence the stack operation directly models for the thermal management of the stack and humidification of the membrane are also developed. The results of the internal losses and humidification models are validated against experimental and computational data. The comparison shows the good agreement with the experiment and computational data Keywords: Polymer electrolyte fuel cells, FC internal losses, thermal management, humidification