Optimization design of proton exchange membrane fuel cell cooling plate based on dual-objective function topology theory

To enhance the cooling performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), the structural design of cooling channel of PEMFC with dual-objective function model is conducted based on topology optimization. The cooling characteristics of topological and traditional cooling plates under different channel depths (dc) and coolant inlet velocities (Vin) were comparatively investigated by constructing the fuel cell convective heat transfer experimental platform. The results indicate that with the increase of channel depth, the maximum and average temperatures of both cooling plates gradually decrease, while the pressure drop increases gradually. When the channel depth changes from 1 mm to 2 mm, the maximum temperatures of topological and traditional cooling plates decrease by 2.5 °C and 3.6 °C, respectively. At dc = 1 mm, the pressure drop of topological cooling plate is 16.7 Pa, which is 22.7% lower than that of traditional cooling plate. The maximum and average temperatures of cooling plate gradually decrease as coolant inlet velocity increases. At Vin = 0.25 m/s, the average temperature of topological cooling plate has the lowest value of 43.85 °C. The optimized cooling plate has better heat transfer efficiency, especially when the coolant velocity is large. The topological cooling plate has lower temperature uniformity index (IUT) and the maximum temperature under the same pump power consumption.