Numerical study on applicability of metal foam as flow distributor in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs)

In this paper, the effects of using porous metal foam based bipolar plates (BPs) are investigated under practical automotive fuel cell operations with low humidification reaction gases. Particular emphasis is placed on evaluating water management capabilities of metal foam based BP designs, compared to the traditional serpentine flow field BP designs. A three-dimensional, two-phase fuel cell model developed in a previous study is applied to 25cm² real-scale fuel cell geometries with metal foam and serpentine flow modes, and then successfully validated against the experimental data measured under different operating pressures and current densities. The detailed simulation results clearly elucidate advantages of using metal foam as flow distributor through extensive multidimensional contours of flow velocity, species, and current density.