TRIZ-guided thermo-hydraulic evaluation of cooling plate flowfield geometries for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) cooling plates require a balance between effective heat removal and low hydraulic resistance. This study proposes a TRIZ-guided design framework to develop and assess nine cooling plate flow field geometries using computational fluid dynamics, Pareto-based thermohydraulic evaluation, and experimental verification. The numerical analysis considered inlet velocities of 0.25, 0.50, and 1.00 m s⁻¹ and heat fluxes of 2000, 5000, and 8000 W m⁻². Evaluated parameters included maximum temperature, temperature difference, temperature uniformity index, pressure drop, and pumping power. The results revealed a consistent thermal-hydraulic trade-off across all geometries. OSPH provided the strongest thermal suppression, reaching T max = 315.78 K and ΔT = 2.63 K at 1.0 m s⁻¹ and 8000 W m⁻², but generated a pressure drop of 141.18 kPa. The three-pass serpentine configuration (TPS) instead provided the most favorable thermohydraulic compromise, with T max = 318.99 K and ΔP = 2.69 kPa, reducing pressure drop by approximately 91.6% relative to the MBD baseline while increasing Tmax by only 0.60 K. Experimental verification of MBD, TPS, and OSPH at the most demanding operating condition reproduced this numerical ranking, with TPS reducing the measured pressure drop by approximately 91.2% relative to MBD. These findings confirm TRIZ as an effective structured concept-generation method, with CFD and Pareto analysis providing quantitative screening of competing designs. Notably, added geometric complexity did not consistently yield superior performance across the operating range. TPS is identified as the preferred practical configuration, establishing a systematic, physically grounded framework for thermohydraulic cooling-plate development in PEMFC systems.