EFFECT OF NEW FRACTAL FLOW FIELD STRUCTURE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF HYDROGEN FUEL CELL

To address the issues of uneven gas concentration distribution and severe water flooding in hydrogen fuel cells, in this study, a new flow field of a hydrogen fuel cell was designed based on the fractal theory. Numerical simulations of hydrogen fuel cells with both the composite serpentine flow field and the proposed flow field were conducted using Fluent software. The distributions of hydrogen, oxygen, and liquid water in the two flow fields were compared, and the effects of hydrogen inlet rate on cell performance and fuel utilization were analyzed. The results demonstrate that the flow field structure significantly influences cell performance. Specifically, the new flow field exhibits a more uniform distribution of hydrogen and oxygen compared to the composite serpentine flow field. Furthermore, the mass fraction of water in the new flow field is lower than that in the composite serpentine flow field. When the hydrogen inlet rate is optimized to 9e[Formula: see text] kg/s, the fuel cell achieves both a high current output density and maintains a high hydrogen utilization rate, thereby reducing fuel costs.