Experimental study and simulations of hydrogen cooling effectiveness for aviation PEM fuel cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are seen as one possible future means of driving the change towards a zero-emission society. In a civil aircraft, fuel cell systems can have multiple potential benefits, such as reduced noise, lowered emissions and higher fuel economy compared to jet airc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2023-12, Vol.13 (1), p.23016-23016, Article 23016
Main Authors: Kösters, Till Lennart, von Schweinitz, Arne Graf, Heere, Michael, Friedrichs, Jens, Gao, Xin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Aircraft
Cooling
Emissions
Fuel cells
Fuel economy
Fuel technology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrogen
multidisciplinary
Noise reduction
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Temperature requirements
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Summary:Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are seen as one possible future means of driving the change towards a zero-emission society. In a civil aircraft, fuel cell systems can have multiple potential benefits, such as reduced noise, lowered emissions and higher fuel economy compared to jet aircraft. For controlling the fuel cell temperature, thermal management systems are required which can be optimized for aircraft applications regarding their weight and reliability. In this work, a simplified and light-weight thermal management system relying on hydrogen cooling is presented and analysed. To investigate the feasibility, a test rig and a three-dimensional, singular channel model in ANSYS Fluent were designed. Fuel cell temperature could be maintained within the set threshold in the model and the test rig, thus showing that controlling the fuel cell temperature via the hydrogen reactant flow is a viable alternative thermal management system. Results from the model indicate that both the hydrogen mass flow and hydrogen inlet temperature should be used to control the fuel cell temperature. Furthermore, operating the fuel cell at medium to low current densities is favourable for hydrogen cooling. Future studies will explore alternate flow field designs to facilitate thermal management system relying on hydrogen.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-49309-5