• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.34 no.10
• /
• pp.885-891
• /
• 2010

Thermal management is important for enhancing the performance and durability of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and is taken into account in the design of PEMFCs. In general, cooling pates with circulating liquid coolant (water) are inserted between several unit cells to exhaust the reaction heat from PEMFCs. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to characterize the uniform cooling performance of parallel multipass serpentine flow fields (MPSFFs) that were used as coolant flow channels in PEMFCs. The cooling performances of conventional serpentine and parallel flow fields were also evaluated for the purpose of comparison. The CFD results showed that the use of parallel MPSFFs can help reduce the temperature nonuniformity, and thus, can favorably enhance the performance and durability of PEMFCs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.20-29
• /
• 2013

Turbulent flow and combustion characteristics in a micro can combustor with a baffle plate are investigated by a Reynolds Stress Model. In order to examine the geometric effects on the turbulent combusting flow, several baffle configurations are selected. The interrelation between the flow structure and the thermal field are investigated by examing the variation of recirculation region, flame length and heat loss. For the flow mixing, the decreasing air hole is more efficient than the decrease of the fuel hole. As the fuel or air hole diameter decreases, combustion efficiency is enhanced and flame length is decreased. Additionally, as the diameter of air hole decreases, the heat loss and combustion temperature are increased, while they are reduced with decreasing the diameter of fuel hole.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.618-623
• /
• 2022

The bipolar plate is a key component of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) that transfers reactants and electrons, discharges water and heat as by-products, and serves as a mechanical support for the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). Therefore, the flow field structure of the bipolar plate plays an important role in improving fuel cell performance. In this study, PEMFC performance was investigated with copper foams with different compressibility ratios applied to cathode bipolar plates using a 25 cm² unit cell. The total resistance decreased as the compressibility ratio of the metal foams increased, and, in particular, the charge transfer and mass transfer resistance were significantly improved compared to the serpentine flow field, lowering voltage loss in medium and high current density region. In the case of pressurized air reactant flow with serpentine structure, fuel cell performance was similar to that of a compressed metal foam flow field (S3) up to the medium current density region, but low performance appeared in the high current density region due to flow field structure limitations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of IIIuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.10a
• /
• pp.183-187
• /
• 2008

This paper describes a power control scheme to improve the performance of a fuel cell battery hybrid power source for residential application. The proposed power control scheme includes a power control strategy to control the power flow of the fuel cell hybrid power system and a digital control technique for a front-end dc-dc converter of the fuel cell. The power control strategy enables the fuel cell to operate within the high efficiency region defined by the polarization curve and efficiency curve of the fuel cell. A dual boost converter with digital control is applied as a front-end dc-dc converter to control the fuel cell output power. The digital control technique of the converter employs a moving-average digital filter into its voltage feedback loop to cancel the low frequency harmonic current drawn from the fuel cell and then limits the fuel cell output current to a current limit using a predictive current limiter to keep the fuel cell operation within the high efficiency region as well as to minimize the fuel cell oxygen starvation.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2008.11b
• /
• pp.2236-2241
• /
• 2008

The surface heat flux of nuclear fuel rod is the most important factor which can affect safety of reactor and fuel. If fuel rod surface heat flux exceeds the CHF(${\underline{C}}ritical$ ${\underline{H}}eat$ ${\underline{F}}lux$), fuel can be damaged. In case of double cooled annular fuel, which is under developing, contains two coolant channels. Therefore, a generated heat in the fuel pellet can move to inner or outer channel and heat flow direction is decided by both sides heat resistance which varied by dimension and material property change which caused by temperature and irradiation. The new program(called DUO) was developed. For the calculation of surface heat flux, a both sides convection by inner/outer coolant, s gap temperature jump and conduction in the fuel are modeled. Especially, temperature and time dependent fuel dimension and material property change are considered during the iteration. A sample calculation result shows that the DUO program has sufficient performance for annular fuel thermal hydraulics design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.11
• /
• pp.3723-3740
• /
• 2021

The harsh conditions in the reactor affect the thermal and mechanical performance of the fuel plate heavily. Some in-pile behaviors, like fission-induced swelling, can cause a large deformation of fuel plate at very high burnup, which may even disturb the flow of coolant. In this research, the emphasis is put on the thermal expansion, fission-induced swelling, interaction layer (IL) growth, creep of the fuel meat, and plasticity of the cladding for the U₃Si₂/Al dispersion fuel plate. A detailed model of the fuel meat swelling is developed. Taking these in-pile behaviors into consideration, the three-dimensional large deformation incremental constitutive relations and stress update algorithms have been developed to study its thermal-mechanical performance under normal conditions using Abaqus. Results have shown that IL can effectively decrease the thermal conductivity of fuel meat. The high Mises stress region mainly locates at the interface between fuel meat and cladding, especially around the side edge of the interface. With irradiation time increasing, the stress in the fuel plate gets larger resulting from the growth of fuel meat swelling but then decreases under the effect of creep deformation. For the cladding, plasticity deformation does not occur within the irradiation time.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2006.10a
• /
• pp.209-219
• /
• 2006

The supersonic combustion experiments are carried out using T3 free-piston shock tunnel. Different shock tube fill pressures have various inflow conditions. $15^{\circ}$ inclined hydrogen fuel injection is located before the cavity. Oblique shock is generated at the trailing edge of the cavity and reflects off the top and bottom wall. For non-reacting flow, static pressures in low equivalence ratio are similar to those in no fuel injection. As equivalence ratio is increased, static pressures are increased in the duct. In the similar equivalence ratio, static pressures are increased when total enthalpy is decreased. For reacting flow, the flame is occurred near the cavity. The combustion is weak locally in the middle of the duct. The up and down pressure distribution in the duct means that the supersonic combustion is generated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.35-40
• /
• 2011

An experimental investigation of the characteristic of non-premixed lifted flames with nozzle hole-tone of high-frequency has been performed. Before the fuel was supplied to nozzle, the fuel was supplied through a burner cavity which was located under the nozzle. The fuel passed through the excitation cavity under the influence of the high-frequency affects the lifted flame characteristics. The measurements were performed in flow range that occurs lifted flame and blow out. When the high-frequency is generated from burner cavity, the lifted length became shorter, and noise reduced comparing to unexcitation case. Additionally, operating flow range was increased and diameter of flame base became smaller with high-frequency effect. Through this experiments, it's ascertained that the high-frequency excitation can be adopted with effective method for flame stability and noise reduction.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.108-114
• /
• 2012

Thermal and fluid flow characteristics in a fuel shut-off valve under operating conditions are studied numerically. The disk size of the valve has 15 mm diameters and maximum mass flow rate is 600 kg/h. The Analysis was performed in the commercial code, STAR-CCM+. This paper shows that results from the numerical analysis has a good agreement compared to experimental results.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2014.11a
• /
• pp.339-342
• /
• 2014

Rotary kiln produces lime from limestone through thermal decomposition. Ring formation in kiln internal wall is known issue that decreases productivity. The cause of ring formation is temperature imbalance as flame leans toward upper wall. Therefore, burner nozzle geometry was changed to improve air-fuel mixing state which leads to prevention of ring formation. CFD simulation and experimental test were performed in this study to investigate the effect of air-fuel mixing on flame structure, temperature and $NO_X$ concentration. It is shown that combustion efficiency has been enhanced and $NO_X$ concentration has been decreased by using swirl flow for secondary combustion air. It's also shown that flame has been straightened by using straight flow for secondary combustion air.