Liquid water transport in parallel serpentine channels with manifolds on cathode side of a PEM fuel cell stack

Abstract Water management in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack has been a challenging issue on the road to commercialization. This paper presents a numerical investigation of air–water flow in parallel serpentine channels on cathode side of a PEM fuel cell stack by use of the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software package FLUENT. Different air–water flow behaviours inside the serpentine flow channels with inlet and outlet manifolds were discussed. The results showed that there were significant variations of water distribution and pressure drop in different cells at different times. The “collecting-and-separating effect” due to the serpentine shape of the gas flow channels, the pressure drop change due to the water distribution inside the inlet and outlet manifolds were observed. Several gas flow problems of this type of parallel serpentine channels were identified and useful suggestions were given through investigating the flow patterns inside the channels and manifolds.