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Lattice Boltzmann simulation of water and gas flow in porous gas diffusion layers in fuel cells reconstructed from micro-tomography
journal contribution
posted on 2012-10-02, 11:26 authored by Yuan Gao, Xiaoxian Zhang, Pratap Rama, Rui Chen, Hossein Ostadi, Kyle JiangThe porous gas diffusion layers (GDLs) are key components in hydrogen fuel cells. During
their operation the cells produce water at the cathode, and to avoid flooding, the water has
to be removed out of the cells. How to manage the water is therefore an important issue in
fuel cell design. In this paper we investigated water flow in the GDLs using a combination
of the lattice Boltzmann method and X-ray computed tomography at the micron scale.
Water flow in the GDL depends on water–air surface tension and hydrophobicity. To
correctly represent the water–gas surface tension, the formations of water droplets in air
were simulated, and the water–gas surface tension was obtained by fitting the simulated
results to the Young–Laplace formula. The hydrophobicity is represented by the water–gasfabric
contact angle. For a given water–gas surface tension the value of the contact angle
was determined by simulating the formations of water droplets on a solid surface with
different hydrophobicity. We then applied the model to simulate water intrusion into
initially dry GDLs driven by a pressure gradient in attempts to understand the impact of
hydrophobicity on water distribution in the GDLs. The structures of the GDL were acquired
by X-ray micro-tomography at a resolution of 1.7 microns. The simulated results revealed
that with an increase in hydrophobicity, water transport in GDLs changes from piston-flow
to channelled flow.
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
- Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering
Citation
GAO, Y. ... et al, 2013. Lattice Boltzmann simulation of water and gas flow in porous gas diffusion layers in fuel cells reconstructed from micro-tomography. Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 65 (6), pp. 891–900.Publisher
© ElsevierVersion
- NA (Not Applicable or Unknown)
Publication date
2013Notes
This article was accepted for publication in the journal, Computers and Mathematics with Applications [© Elsevier]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.camwa.2012.08.006.ISSN
0898-1221Publisher version
Language
- en