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Computationally‐Efficient Simulation of Transport Phenomena in Fuel Cell Stacks via Electrical and Thermal Decoupling of the Cells
Author(s) -
Sharma A. K.,
Birgersson E.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
fuel cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.485
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1615-6854
pISSN - 1615-6846
DOI - 10.1002/fuce.201400001
Subject(s) - proton exchange membrane fuel cell , decoupling (probability) , stack (abstract data type) , fuel cells , computer science , thermal , electrochemical energy conversion , isothermal process , charge conservation , scalability , mass transport , electrochemistry , materials science , mechanics , chemistry , physics , chemical engineering , biochemical engineering , thermodynamics , control engineering , electrode , engineering , charge (physics) , database , programming language , quantum mechanics
To overcome the prohibitive computational cost associated with detailed mechanistic models for fuel cell stacks, we derive an efficient computational strategy based on thermal and electrical decoupling of cells. The conditions that allow for decoupling are discussed and verified with a non‐isothermal model considering two‐dimensional conservation of mass, momentum, species, energy, charge, and electrochemistry for a 10‐cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack. The derived strategy allows for simulation of large stacks comprising hundreds of cells at a low computational cost and complexity; e.g., for a PEMFC stack comprising 500 cells, the decoupled algorithm takes less than 30 min to solve and requires only 1 GB of random access memory.