A polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is expected to lead the automobile and domestic distributed power generation market in the near future.Despite this expectation,several mechanisms and phenomena about its performance are not clear yet.Among them,channel-to-channel flow (CCF) in gas diffusion layer (GDL) is one of the main factors for improving fuel cell performance and many studies have been carried out.However,these studies are just considering numerical approaches.In this study,an experimental approach is conducted directly to evaluate the CCF in GDL of PEMFCs.The flow channels used in this experiment are straight and not connected each other.It is assumed that the pressure of reactant gas is constant along the straight flow channel and there are no reactant consumption and water generation.The CCF is investigated under various flow rate of one channel,clamping pressure of the fuel cell,and width of the land.The result of this study shows that the rate of CCF increases as adjusting the conditions,implying that the distribution of reactant gas in GDL can be improved and more fuel cell reaction occurs under the land part.
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