Abstract

The Performance of PEM fuel cells is greatly influenced by the design and operating parameters. Effective distribution of reactants into the flow fields are carried out by the flow channels. So, flow channel geometry and flow field design contributes a crucial role of fuel cells performance. The Serpentine flow field gives the better performance when compared with other flow field design. In this analysis PEM fuel cell with three passes curved serpentine flow field design is selected to investigate the effect of its performance for the different cell voltages (0.25, 0.35, 0.45, 0.55, 0.65 V). Analyzed results show that the PEM fuel cell with three passes curved serpentine flow field design gives the maximum membrane current and power density at a cell voltage of 0.25 V and 0.65 V respectively. Among the other four cell voltages fuel cell with a cell voltage of 0.25 V yields the better operating characteristics like gas diffusion layer’s pressure and velocity distributions and cathode oxygen concentrations.