Pore Structure and Pore Scale Simulation of Permeability of
 Micro-Porous Layer in PEM Fuel Cell

doi:10.16183/j.cnki.jsjtu.2019.143

Abstract

Abstract: Numerical reconstructions of the micro-porous layer (MPL) have been performed by using the sphere-based simulated annealing method and the dynamic particle-packing model, of which, the former is more accurate to reflect the pore structures of the porous media. The single-phase flow inside the MPL reconstructed is simulated by using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) with multi-relaxation time (MRT) and multi-reflection (MR) solid boundary. The effects of carbon volume fraction, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) loading, porosity, and PTFE distribution on the pore structure and permeability of the MPL are studied. The results show that the MPL permeability decreases with the increase in carbon volume fraction and PTFE loading, and the pore structure and permeability of MPL are also influenced by the distribution of PTFE. The Kozeny-Carman (KC) equation underestimates the permeability of MPL and a modified correlation to predict the permeability coefficient of MPL is proposed. The relative error between the results predicted by this correlation and the pore scale simulations is less than 12%.

CLC Number:

TK 91

HE Yusong,BAI Minli,HAO Liang. Pore Structure and Pore Scale Simulation of Permeability of Micro-Porous Layer in PEM Fuel Cell[J]. Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University, 2020, 54(10): 1053-1064.

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Pore Structure and Pore Scale Simulation of Permeability of Micro-Porous Layer in PEM Fuel Cell

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