CFD-based Flow Simulation Study of Fuel Cell Protective Gas

CFD를 활용한 연료전지 모듈 보호가스 유동 연구

To improve the safety, the fuel cell operate inside a pressurized enclosure which contains inert gas so called protective gas. The protective gas not only prevents the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, but also removes the water in the vessel with the condenser. This study presents the details of the flow optimization in order to reduce the humidity in the fuel cell housing. The protective gas flow in the fuel cell container is studied by Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) simulations. This study focuses on optimizing the geometry of an protective gas circulation system in fuel cell module to reduce the humidity in the vessel. CFD analysis was carried out for an existing model to understand the flow behavior through the fuel cell system. Based on existing model CFD results, geometrical changes like inlet placement, optimization of outlet size, modification of fuel cell module system are carried out, to improve the flow characteristics. The CFD analysis of the optimized model is again carried out and the results show good improvement in protective gas flow behavior.