1D Modelling of Fuel Cell Losses Including the Water and Thermal Management 2021-26-0225

Fuel cells plays significant role in the automotive sector to substitute the fossil fuels and complement to electric vehicles. In the fuel cell vehicles fuel cell stack is major component. It is important to have a robust fuel cell model that can simulate the behaviour of the fuel cell stack under various operating conditions in order to study the functioning of a fuel cell and optimize its operating parameters and achieve the best efficiency in operation. 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.