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Automotive Engineering ›› 2025, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (10): 1953-1962.doi: 10.19562/j.chinasae.qcgc.2025.10.011

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Investigation on the Performance of PEMFC with Dolphin-Inspired Biomimetic Flow Field

Shuanyang Zhang1,Hongtao Xu2(),Guobin Zhang3,Xiaoping Chen1,Quan Yuan1,Guanyi Chen1   

  1. 1.Department of Mechanical Engineering,Ningbo University of Technology,Ningbo 315336
    2.School of Energy and Power Engineering,University of Shanghai for Science and Technology,Shanghai 200093
    3.School of Energy and Power Engineering,Xi’an Jiaotong University,Xi’an 710049
  • Received:2025-03-19 Revised:2025-04-25 Online:2025-10-25 Published:2025-10-20
  • Contact: Hongtao Xu E-mail:htxu@usst.edu.cn

Abstract:

In order to improve the output performance and water and thermal management capabilities of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), inspired by the drag-reducing shape of dolphins, a dolphin-shaped blockage flow field (DSB-FF) is designed in this paper. A non-isothermal three-dimensional model of the biomimetic flow field is developed and analyzed using Fluent. The simulation results show that the polarization curves of DSB-FF are almost identical to those of the triangular blockage flow field (TB-FF). Although the peak power density of TB-FF is 2.06% and 0.61% higher than that of the parallel flow field (PFF) and DSB-FF, respectively, its high pressure drop of 27.978 Pa reduces the net output power to 0.720 W. In contrast, DSB-FF, with its superior drag-reducing design, achieves the highest net output power of 0.986 W, effectively balancing power density and pressure drop while maintaining a higher oxygen molar concentration across most regions. Additionally, compared to PFF, DSB-FF accelerates the flow velocity of reactive gases within the flow channels, reducing the drainage time by approximately 5 ms. Among the flow fields, the decreasing contact angle flow field demonstrates the best drainage performance with the shortest drainage time of 11 ms, outperforming the mean and increasing contact angle flow fields. Finally, the DSB-FF equipped with cooling channels effectively reduces the high-temperature regions, exhibiting superior thermal management capabilities compared to PFF.

Key words: proton exchange membrane fuel cell, biomimetic flow field, output performance, water and thermal management