• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.476-483
• /
• 2012

Proper water management is crucial for the efficient operation of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Especially, for automotive applications, A novel water management that can avoid both membrane dry-out and flooding is a very important task to achieve good performance and efficiency of PEM fuel cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the liquid water behavior on the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface and in the cathode flow channel of a PEM unit fuel cell under flooding conditions. For this purpose, a transparent unit fuel cell is devised and fabricated by modifying the conventional PEM fuel cell design. The results of water droplet behavior under flooding conditions are mainly presented. The water distributions in the cathode flow channels with cell operating voltage are also compared and analyzed. Through this work, it is expected that the data obtained from this fundamental study can be effectively used to establish the basic water management strategy in terms of water removal from the flow channels in a PEM fuel cell stack.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• /
• v.21 no.46
• /
• pp.59-72
• /
• 1998

This study is concerned in manufacturing cell formation with operation sequences. Operation sequences must be reflected for manufacturing cell formation anyway, because the primary aim of cellular manufacturing system is to minimize the inter-cell flows, and inter-cell flows are differed by operation sequences. In this study we propose flow-similarity(FS) of reflecting both inter-machine similarity and direct/indirect flow, and then apply the modified P-median model for grouping machines. We also use machine cell-part handling frequency(CPH) so as to be assigned parts to the machine cells having the most CPH. We confirm this approach through an application example. The performance of this approach(FS-model) is evaluated and compared with P-median model and F-model through computational experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
• /
• 2003.04a
• /
• pp.184-187
• /
• 2003

Complete prediction of second order permeability tensor for three dimensional circular braided preform is critical to understand the resin transfer molding process of composites. The permeability can be predicted by considering resin flow through the multi-axial fiber structure. In this study, permeability tensor for a 3-D circular braided preform is calculated by solving a boundary problem of a periodic unit cell. Flow field through the unit cell is obtained by using a 3-D finite volume method (FVM) and Darcy's law is utilized to obtain permeability tensor. Flow analysis for two cases that a fiber tow is regarded as impermeable solid and permeable porous medium is carried out respectively. It is found that the flow within the intra-tow region of the braided preform is negligible if inter-tow porosity is relatively high but the flow through the tow must be considered when the porosity is low. To avoid checkerboard pressure field and improve the efficiency of numerical computation, a new interpolation function for velocity variation is proposed on the basis of analytic solutions. Permeability of the braided preform is measured through a radial flow experiment and compared with the permeability predicted numerically.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.147-151
• /
• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2008.05a
• /
• pp.45-48
• /
• 2008

This paper presents a passive air-breathing direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) which has been designed and tested. The single cell is fuelled by methanol vapor that is supplied through flow channel from a methanol reservoir at the anode, and the oxygen is supplied via natural air-breathing at the cathode. The methods for supplying the methanol vapor to the single cell were parallel channel and chamber. This research investigates various methods to identify the effects of using flow channels for providing the methanol vapor at the anode, and the opening ratio between the inlet and outlet ports for the methanol flow at the anode. The best flow channel condition for passive DMFC was a chamber, and the opening ratio was 0.8. Under these conditions, the peak power was 10.2mW/$cm^2$ at room temperature and ambient pressure. The key issues for the Passive DMFCs for using methanol vapor are that sufficient methanol needs to be supplied using a large as possible opening ratio. However, it is shown that the performance of the passive DMFC, which has a channel at the anode,is low due to the low differential pressure and insufficient methanol supply rate.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.270-276
• /
• 2024

In order to improve the performance of the PM (Particulate Matter) filter, the TPMS structure was used as a flow controller to control the flow entering the filter. Among various TPMS structures, a primitive structure that is easy to utilize 3D printing technique was selected and the effect of unit cell size was analyzed. In addition, numerical analysis was performed and swirl ratio was analyzed to confirm changes in filter inlet flow characteristics that affect changes in filter performance. Unit cell size is closely related to filter performance, and both PM collection efficiency and pressure drop increase as unit cell size decreases. Through quality factor (QF) comparison, which comprehensively evaluate collection efficiency and pressure drop, it was confirmed that when the unit cell size is 5 mm, PM collection efficiency increases, but the flow controller actually reduces filter performance. QF values are similar for unit cell sizes of 10 and 20 mm, and it is advantageous to select the unit cell size among these two considering collection efficiency and operating costs. The filter's collection performance increases due to the increase in swirl flow caused by the primitive structure, and the filter's collection efficiency increases due to the swirl flow that increases throughout the flow field as the unit cell size becomes smaller.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.41 no.11
• /
• pp.964-970
• /
• 2018

Atherosclerosis preferentially involves in prone area of low and disturbed blood flow while steady and high levels of laminar blood flow are relatively protected from atherosclerosis. Disturbed flow induces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and the unfolded protein response (UPR). ER stress is caused under stress that disturbs the processing and folding of proteins resulting in the accumulation of misfolded proteins in the ER and activation of the UPR. Prolonged or severe UPR leads to activate apoptotic signaling. Recent studies have indicated that disturbed flow significantly up-regulated $p-ATF6{\alpha}$, $p-IRE1{\alpha}$, and its target spliced XBP-1. However, the role of laminar flow in ER stress-mediated endothelial apoptosis has not been reported yet. The present study thus investigated the role of laminar flow in ER stress-dependent endothelial cell death. The results demonstrated that laminar flow protects ER stress-induced cleavage forms of PARP-1 and caspase-3. Also, laminar flow inhibits ER stress-induced $p-eIF2{\alpha}$, ATF4, CHOP, spliced XBP-1, ATF6 and JNK pathway; these effects are abrogated by pharmacological inhibition of PI3K with wortmannin. Finally, nitric oxide affects thapsigargin-induced cell death in response to laminar flow but not UPR. Taken together, these findings indicate that laminar flow inhibits UPR and ER stress-induced endothelial cell death via PI3K/Akt pathway.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.170-177
• /
• 2006

Optimum design of flow channel in the separation plate of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell is very prerequisite to reduce concentration over potential at high current region and remove the water generated in cathode effectively. In this paper, fully 3 dimensional computational model which solves anode and cathode flow fields simultaneously is developed in order to compare the performance of fuel cell with parallel and interdigitated flow channels. Oxygen and water concentration and pressure drop are calculated and i-V performance characteristics are compared between flows with two flow channels. Results show that performance of fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel is hi민or than that with parallel flow channel at high current region because hydrogen and oxygen in interdigitated flow channel are transported to catalyst layer effectively due to strong convective transport through gas diffusion layer but pressure drop is larger than that in parallel flow channel. Therefore Trade-off between power gain and pressure loss should be considered in design of fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2002.08a
• /
• pp.611-614
• /
• 2002

Rotating stall in vaneless diffusers of centrifugal compressor occurs in the diffuser wall due to flow separation at large inlet flow angle. For this reason, the critical inlet flow angles are suggested by several researchers. Beyond this critical angle, flow separates in the diffuser, and develops into rotating stall. This paper studied this critical flow angle. Rotating stall is measured through eight fast-response pressure transducers which are equally spaced around the circumference at the inlet and exit of a vaneless diffuser. Experiments are done from 20000rpm to 60000rpm for the diffuser stall. Two-cell structure which rotates at $6{\~}l0{\%}$ of impeller speed is fully developed at $20000{\~}40000rpm$, and three-cell structure which rotates at $7{\~}9{\%}$ of impeller speed is fully developed at $50000{\~}60000rpm$. This paper shows that the critical inlet flow angle is not constant but related with tip speed of impeller. As tip speed increases, so does the critical inlet flow angle.

• Journal of Advanced Information Technology and Convergence
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.103-113
• /
• 2019

Motivation: Polymerized actin-based cytoskeletal structures are crucial in shape, dynamics, and resilience of a cell. For example, dynamical actin-containing ruffles are located at leading edges of cells and have a significant impact on cell motility. Other filamentous actin (F-actin) bundles, called stress fibers, are essential in cell attachment and detachment. For this reason, their mechanistic understanding provides crucial information to solve practical problems related to cell interactions with materials in tissue engineering. Detecting and counting actin-based structures in a cellular ensemble is a fundamental first step. In this research, we suggest a new method to characterize F-actin wrapping fibers from confocal fluorescence image stacks. As fluorescently labeled F-actin often envelope the fibers, we first propose to segment these fibers by diminishing an energy based on maximum flow and minimum cut algorithm. The actual actin is detected through the use of bilateral filtering followed by a thresholding step. Later, concave actin bundles are detected through a graph-based procedure that actually determines if the considered actin filament is enclosing the fiber.