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Indexed by:期刊论文

Date of Publication:2011-05-01

Journal:INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYDROGEN ENERGY

Included Journals:SCIE、EI

Volume:36

Issue:10

Page Number:6039-6044

ISSN No.:0360-3199

Key Words:Fuel cells; Electrical contact resistance; Contact pressure

Abstract:Electrical contact resistance (ECR) is one of the most important factors affecting the ohmic loss in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Dominated by the contact pressure at the interface of two neighboring components, the ECR can be reduced by increasing the clamping force applied on fuel cell stack. However, too large a clamping force will result in excessive resistance to the transport of reactants in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) and even damage to the fuel cell components. Therefore, for a given clamping force, the minimum ECR is expected by making the pressure distribution as uniform as possible. This paper investigates two questions: (a) how to evaluate the distribution of non-uniform pressure based on the ECR, and (b) in what situation will a uniform pressure distribution reduce the ECR obviously, i.e., the sensitivity of the contact resistance to the pressure distribution.
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