Flow field design and parameter optimization of PEMFC based on leaf vein structure

The flow field of proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) serves as an important place for reactant transport, and a reasonable flow field design plays an important role in the performance, reliability and durability of the PEMFC. In this paper, a leaf vein type biomimetic flow field was designed based on the leaf vein structure of a tree leaf, and a two-phase steady-state numerical model of PEMFC was established, which provides theoretical support for the optimization of the biomimetic flow field. In order to improve the performance of the PEMFC with biomimetic flow field, a Kriging model was combined with genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) to achieve a multi-objective optimization of the structural parameters of the flow field. Finally, the performance differences between the optimized biomimetic and conventional flow fields are investigated by experiments. The results showed that the inlet width of main channel the and the angle between the main and secondary channels have a significant effect on the performance of biomimetic flow field, and the performance of the optimized biomimetic flow fields is significantly improved. Comparison with the conventional flow field reveals that the optimized biomimetic flow field has more obvious advantages at high current densities.