New Fuel Cell features in Fluent 17

Dr. Rolf Reinelt

ANSYS Germany GmbH
1 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018
 Water management in fuel cells

• In a PEM FC water is created at the cathode catalytic layer

– It can also be added to supply of hydrogen and air
• Water can exist in 3 forms
– Dissolved in the ionomer
– Water vapor (species) in the porous media and gas channels
– Liquid water in the porous media (and gas channels)
• Liquid water is usually harmful
• Dissolved water is needed

2 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Microscopic view

3 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Fluent 16 vs. 17
• Old model (up to 16)
– Liquid water treated as fine
mist of droplets
– s = water saturation = volume
fraction of liquid water
– Diffusion coefficient includes
capillary effects
– Removed from channels at gas
speed convection
– Not possible to model MPL
4 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018
• New model (17)
– Liquid water tracked as
"capillary water"
– Driven by capillary pressure
– Possible to model MPL
– In gas channels transported at
user-specified fraction of gas
speed
 Schematic of a PEM Fuel Cell

5 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Potentials

Phi_sol = UDS 0

Phi_mem = UDS 1

R_an = UDM 13
eta_an = UDM 6

New

6 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Overpotentials

New

7 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Cathode Particle Model

New

8 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Results

Case conti residual dI_mea I_anode A/cm2

Base (with 2.0156e-06 0.000000 0.886205
Cathode Particle
Model)
r_p=0, R_ion=0 4.0429e-06 0.000003 0.924535 (+4%)
Cathode Particle 4.0425e-06 0.000003 0.924535
Model Off

9 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Species source terms

New

10 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Water model

Membrane Cat. Layer MPL GDL Channel

Electro-chemistry

Sgd
λ λ Yw Yw Yw Yw

Sld Sld Sgl Sgl Sgl

pc pc pc pc s
f_liq

λ = water content pc = capillary pressure Yw = mass fraction of water specie

11 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018
 Dissolved water model New

S_gd = UDM 11

S_ld = UDM 12

PS:

[kg/m3/s]

[mol/m3]

 [-]

12 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Liquid water model

New

S_gl = UDM 7

F_liq = UDM 15

from GDL to channel

13 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Liquid water in channels

New

𝝌 and 𝑫𝒍𝒊𝒒 are user-specified values.

When solving this equation, automatically the channels will be set to porous
zone model, with resistance set to resist_chan::pemfc
𝟏
𝛁𝒑 = −𝝁 𝒗
𝜶
𝟏 𝟗 𝟐
𝟏
= 𝟏𝟎 𝒔
𝜶 𝒎𝟐

resist_chan::pemfc calls pem_resist_chan(), which calls the function

resistance_in_channel() in pemfc_user.c
resistance_in_channel() returns 1/α
14 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018
 What to expect in the solution?

• GDL will push liquid water into the channel, local increase of
s
• s is transported at fraction of gas velocity and furthermore
gas velocity is reduced by porous media mechanism
• As a result I would expect
– A „layer“ of s-values close to the GDL in the channel
– Reduced gas velocity in this layer and therefore increased gas velocity
in the rest of the channel
– Overall higher pressure loss of the gas channel and therefore higher
gas pressure near the inlets

15 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model options

16 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 What is solved where?

Anode to e- Pot. H+ Pc  s Species

cathode uds-0 Pot. uds-2 uds-3 uds-4
uds-1
Cur. Coll. Solid y
Channel Fluid y y
GDL Fluid y y Y
MPL Fluid y y y
Cat. Layer Fluid y y y y y
Membrane Solid y y y
Cat. Layer Fluid y y y y y
MPL Fluid y y y
GDL Fluid y y y
Channel Fluid y y
Cur. Coll. Solid y
17 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018
 Model parameters

18 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

19 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

20 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

21 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

22 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

23 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

24 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

25 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Liquid in Channels

26 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Model parameters

27 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Anode catalytic layer

28 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Anode MPL

29 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Membrane

30 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Contact resistance (electrical)

31 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Geometry of tutorial

Anode

Channel
H2, H2O
GDL and MPL (same properties) Membrane (solid) and
MPL Catalytic layers
GDL
Channel
O2,H2O,N2

Current collector (solid)

Cathode

32 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018

 Best practise

• Best practices document from ANSYS development available

• Main points are:
– SIMPLE
– Underrelax pressure and momentum 0.3, everything else 1
– Multigrid settings now by default
– Underrelax source terms
– From high voltage to lower voltage
– Switch off models or equations if above does not help
– Switch off electro-chemistry to identify mesh issues
• Check your stoichiometric ratios and relative humidity

33 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. April 23, 2018