Analysis of flow distribution in a symmetric bipolar plate for PEMFC

A 3D model of a symmetric distributor was studied using the fundamental equations of mass and momentum conservation. The objective of this work is to study the uniformity of flow distribution in a PEMFC bipolar plate and and the pressure drop across the entire model. The flow distributor studied has a symmetric configuration using the relation 2ⁿ for the bifurcation pattern, where n is the number of bifurcations. Sixteen sub-streams are considered. A parametric analysis was conducted to investigate the effect of flow distribution in terms of the different lengths of the bifurcation level. To quantify the energy losses due to the different distributor configurations, the pressure drop was determined between the inlet and outlet of the bipolar plate. The pressure drop was obtained using a complete 3D model of the distributor, while a half model was used to calculate the flow rate at the sixteen outlets. To evaluate the flow uniformity distribution two dimensionless parameters were used, the standard flow rate deviation and the maximum flow rate ratio. It was found that the pressure drop for all distributor configurations analyzed was negligible at low Reynolds.