Optimization analysis of air cooled open cathode proton exchange membrane fuel cell flow channel structure

The cathode channel of air-cooled open-cathode proton exchange membrane fuel cell (AO-PEMFC) is both a reactant supply channel and a cooling and heat dissipation channel, and its structural design is a key factor affecting its output performance. Firstly, the numerical study of AO-PEMFC with different cathode channel bending angles was carried out, and the results showed that the output performance of a single cell with a cathode bending angle of 2.5° was improved by 3.88% compared with that of a single cell with a cathode straight channel at rated point-density electricity, and the cathode voltage drop increased by only 1.5%. In addition, in order to further improve the power density of the fuel cell, two agent models, support vector regression and Gaussian process regression, are constructed and trained, and a genetic algorithm is used to find the parameter optimization for the bending angle, width and height of the cathode channel. Finally, the proposed ranges of width, height and bending angle of the optimal flow channel are obtained, which are w = 1.1-1.2 mm, d = 1.3-1.5 mm and θ = 2.23°-2.99°, respectively, and the output power density of a single cell within this range will be no less than 0.489 W/cm².