A 20-cell, 80 W direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stack was manufactured to investigate the power distribution among the cells. The experimental results indicated a poor cell performance in the middle section of the stack. Subsequent simulations revealed an insufficient gas supply to several cells located in the middle, which aligns with the underperformance in the experiments. This suggests that inadequate gas distribution was responsible for the poor cell performance. Numerical simulations demonstrated that uneven gas distribution was caused by the vortices. Consequently, novel flow field structures were developed to change the vortices in the manifold, resulting in a significant enhancement in the gas distribution uniformity. Experiments confirmed that this new design effectively improved the stack’s performance. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for enhancing the flow field design of DMFC stacks.

中文翻译：

---

基于实验和 CFD 模拟的 DMFC 电堆中的气体分布优化


制造了 20 节电池、80 W 直接甲醇燃料电池 (DMFC) 电堆来研究电池之间的功率分布。实验结果表明电堆中间部分的电池性能较差。随后的模拟显示，位于中间的几个电池的气体供应不足，这与实验中的表现不佳相符。这表明气体分布不充分是电池性能不佳的原因。数值模拟表明，气体分布不均匀是由涡流引起的。因此，开发了新颖的流场结构来改变歧管中的涡流，从而显着提高气体分布均匀性。实验证实，这种新设计有效提高了堆栈的性能。这项研究的结果为增强 DMFC 电堆的流场设计提供了宝贵的见解。