Experimental study on gas/water distribution inside channels of proton exchange membrane fuel cells under vibration conditions

Fuel cell vehicles experience vibration situations during driving processes, meanwhile, vibration affects liquid water evolution inside the fuel cell. Understanding gas/water transportation behaviors inside fuel cell channels under vibration conditions facilitates better optimizing water management especiallyat vibration situations. With this purpose, in this study, effects of vibration behaviors that simulate real road conditions on gas and water transportation as well as the cell performance are investigated by experimental method. The changes of the inside water transportations inside the channel during switching are observed by using a transparent window constructed in fuel cell end-plates. The experimental results show that the vibration degrade the cell performance by up to 8.34%. Comparing with horizontal vibration, vertical vibration has more adverse effects on performance and it can degrade the cell performance by up to 5.99%; larger the amplitude and vibration frequency result in lower cell performance. When vibration occurs, the amplitude and number of movements of the water column increase significantly, and liquid water occurs inside channel regions, resulting in flooding in the cell, and the water block transferring path of the gas diffusion layer, resulting in reactants transportation blocking and gas resistance increase, which eventually reduces the cell performance.