Faculty Publications
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Item NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECTS OF INHOMOGENEOUS GAS DIFFUSION LAYER AND IMPACT OF INTERFACIAL CONTACT RESISTANCE ON PERFORMANCE OF POLYMER ELECTROLYTE FUEL CELLS(International Association for Hydrogen Energy, IAHE, 2022) Shinde, U.; Padavu, P.; Koorata, P.K.A three-dimensional single-channel is modeled numerically to simulate homogeneous and inhomogeneous gas diffusion layer (GDL). The effect of interfacial contact resistance (ICR) between flow field ribs and GDL is also studied. The present study involves GDL being considered as a single component (homogeneous) in one case while in another case, GDL being considered with varying porosities to depict the inhomogeneity. The inhomogeneity in GDL is assumed to occur due to localized deformation induced due to non-uniform contact pressure. The study reveals increased availability of reactants at higher current loads in the case where ICR is assumed negligible. This study explains how the presence and absence of ICR impact reaction concentrations, water concentration, current density and polarization curve of polymer electrolyte fuel cells. It is observed in polarization curve that the presence of ICR has effect both in ohmic and mass transport region. This work involves considering 4 cases viz: homogeneous GDL, inhomogeneous GDL, homogeneous GDL with ICR and inhomogeneous GDL with ICR. © 2022 Proceedings of WHEC 2022 - 23rd World Hydrogen Energy Conference: Bridging Continents by H2. All rights reserved.Item Review on physical and chemical properties of low and high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEFC) sealants(Elsevier Ltd, 2022) Kumar, V.; Koorata, P.K.; Shinde, U.; Padavu, P.; George, S.C.Sealants (or gaskets) play an exceptional role in the efficient functioning of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEFCs). They prevent leakage of reactant gases and coolants from the perimeter of cell. Also, they circumvent the direct mixing of reactant gases in the active region of the PEFC. Sealants ensure electrical insulation, preventing a short circuit between anode and cathode of the PEFCs. Sealants enhance the safety, thereby improving the functional performance of the PEFCs. In addition, the sealants have functional requirements that contain excellent physical and chemical properties to withstand the working conditions of PEFCs. Hence, the physical and chemical properties of the sealants are crucial for improving the sealing capability as well as the performance of PEFC. In this article, properties such as weight loss, indentation load, elastic modulus, hardness, hysteresis loss, chemical composition and chemical structure of well-known PEFC sealants are reviewed. These PEFC sealants are classified into low-temperature PEFC (LT-PEFC) and high-temperature PEFC (HT-PEFC) sealants, depending on the operational temperature. The polymeric materials such as silicone rubber, fluoroelastomers (FKM), ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) rubber, etc. are found to be suitable sealant materials for PEFCs. © 2022 Elsevier LtdItem Numerical investigation on the sensitivity of endplate design and gas diffusion material models in quantifying localized interface and bulk electrical resistance(Elsevier Ltd, 2021) Shinde, U.; Koorata, P.K.A localized non-intuitive relationship between electrical interface contact resistance and bulk properties such as bulk electrical resistance and permeability in the fuel cell gas diffusion layer (GDL) is reported. A numerical method is adopted to investigate contact pressure and hence the interface contact resistance at the interfaces of bipolar plate (BPP)|GDL and GDL|Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM). The results are observed to be sensitive to GDL material models as well as endplate designs. This means, endplates designed to improve the electrical contact resistance or contact pressure at the BPP|GDL interface may not necessarily assure an improvement in bulk properties, in fact, it is observed in this study that these properties are inversely related. Further, a differential deformation in GDL along with consolidation effect is predicted with compressible version of hyperelastic material model. More importantly, it is revealed that the selection of material models plays a significant role in the deformation behaviour of the GDLs irrespective of the clamping design adopted. © 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLCItem A phase-dependent constitutive model to predict cyclic electrical conductivity in fuel cell gas diffusion media(Elsevier B.V., 2022) Shinde, U.; Koorata, P.K.Structure-property relation in fuel cell gas diffusion layer (GDL) is a dependent function of its constituents. The bulk electrical conductivity of these layers is known to be relative density function varying due to external force or cell operating conditions. To locally predict the changes due to complex working conditions, an accurate model that predicts the nonlinearity of GDLs is highly desirable. To this end, this article proposes a material model that is phenomenologically derived to address the cyclic electrical conductivity of GDLs. Functional variables are taken to operate on porosity variation, fiber contact density, and fiber dislocation parameters. In the presence of these parameters, the results illustrate nonlinear conductivity variation with the magnitude of applied cyclic compressive load. Through successive loading-unloading, the porous structure is modeled to reach a steady-state reflecting stable conductivity-stress behavior for the constant stress limit. An interesting behavior of GDL can be captured where conductivity reduces as compressive load exceeds a threshold limit called break stress due to fiber breakages or dislocations. A greater applicability of this model may lie in mapping localized in-situ response of GDLs under cyclic operations. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.Item Electrical/flow heterogeneity of gas diffusion layer and inlet humidity induced performance variation in polymer electrolyte fuel cells(Elsevier Ltd, 2023) Shinde, U.; Koorata, P.K.; Padavu, P.A three-dimensional single-flow channel computational model is used to investigate the performance characteristics of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC). The combined influence of non-uniform interfacial contact resistance (ICR) and inlet relative humidity (RH), along with the heterogeneous flow properties of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) on the PEFC performance is evaluated. The study considers combinations of full and partial humidification of anode and cathode reactants. Results reveal heterogeneous GDL with non-uniform ICR distribution results in a slight ∼4.4% reduction in current density at 0.3V compared to the homogeneous case. However, under same electrical/flow heterogeneities, the current density is observed to increase by ∼19% to ∼1.3A/cm2 under fully humidified anode and partially humidified cathode (i.e., RHa|RHc = 100%|60%) as compared to ∼1.1A/cm2 under symmetric RHa|RHc = 100%|100%. Interesting observations are made on the temperature distribution and cathodic water fractions. The variation in anodic inlet humidity is observed to have no impact on temperature distribution in the membrane, whereas variation in cathodic inlet humidity is effective in reducing the temperature in the channel regime with a 4K (kelvin) difference among all the cases. It is noted here that the overpotential map is not an indicator for performance loss, at least at full inlet humidity. This parameter is observed to depend on water concentration in the cathode. The study provides a detailed analysis of the distribution of reactant mass fraction, water concentration, current density, temperature, cathodic overpotential, and cell performance for all the simulated cases. © 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLCItem Numerical investigation on the effects of inhomogeneous gas diffusion layer and impact of interfacial contact resistance on the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells(Elsevier Ltd, 2024) Shinde, U.; Koorata, P.K.; Padavu, P.In this study, a three-dimensional single channel is numerically modeled to simulate the polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) with a homogeneous and inhomogeneous gas diffusion layer (GDL). The influence of interfacial contact resistance (ICR) between GDL and current collector ribs (GDL|CC) is also studied. In the present study, GDL is considered as a single component (homogeneous) in one case and inhomogeneous with varying electrical and flow properties to illustrate the inhomogeneity in another case. The inhomogeneity in GDL is primarily caused by localized deformation due to non-uniform contact pressure during fuel cell assemblies. The consideration of ICR is observed to have a significant effect on both the ohmic and mass transport regions of the polarization curve. Inhomogeneous GDL with ICR, considered close to a practical scenario, shows a ∼7% drop in performance evaluation at 0.3V. The study reveals increased consumption of reactants at higher current loads when ICR is assumed negligible. This study examines the effects of homogeneous GDL, inhomogeneous GDL, and the impact of ICR on the distributions of reactant concentration, water concentration, temperature, current density, and polarization curve in PEFC. This study presents the practical aspects of PEFC considering inhomogeneous GDL electrical and flow properties. © 2023 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC