• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.47-51
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• 2007

The present paper reports the life time prediction of Acrylonitrile-Butadiene rubber (NBR) fuel cell gasket materials as a function of operational variables like acid concentration, ageing time and temperature. Both material and accelerated acid-heat aging tests were carried out to predict the useful life of the NBR rubber gasket for use as a fuel cell stack. The acid ageing of the gasket compounds has been investigated at 120, 140 and $160^{\circ}C$, with aging times from 3 to 600 h and increasing acid ($H_2SO_4$) concentrations of 5, 6, 7 and 10 vol%. Material characteristics the gas compound such as cross-link density, tensile strength and elongation at break were studied. The hardness of the NBR rubber was found to decrease with decreasing acid concentration at both 120 and $140^{\circ}C$, but at $160^{\circ}C$ interestingly the hardness of the NBR rubber increased abruptly in a very short time at different acid concentrations. The tensile strength and elongation at break were found to decrease with increase in both the acid concentrate ion & temperature. The life time of the compounds were evaluated using the Arrhenius equation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2022

The Mooney-Rivlin second order optimal strain energy function derived through uniaxial tensile test and analysis was applied to a gasket to confirm the internal stress and surface pressure generated during compression. The Taguchi method, a statistical technique, was used to design the optimum shape of the gasket, and through characteristic evaluation, the optimum shape of the gasket was obtained when the reference plane (T: 0.15 mm), contact surface (W: 1.00 mm), and curvature (R: 0.30 mm) were used. It was determined that the optimum shape yields a von Mises stress of 4.83 MPa, and the contact pressure stress is 20.14 MPa, which satisfies breakage and sealing requirements. In the future, we plan to manufacture a jig that can measure surface pressure to conduct comparative verification studies between the test results and analysis results.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.389-391
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• 2009

The performance loss as pressurized by inside components like GDL and bipolar plate happened when assembling the PEMFC stack with clamping force. Numerical analysis of Gasket was carried out to analyze distribution of clamping pressure about the inside components. In case of the gasket, Mooney-Rivlin model which is the Strain Energy Function was used for numerical analysis. This result made the stress distribution of bipolar plate to expect.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2007

Mechanical behavior in metal bipolar plate of a fuel cell stack was studied using finite element analysis. The fuel stack is essentially composed of a metal bipolar plate (metal BP), a gasket, an end plate, a membrane electrolyte assembly (MEA), and a gas diffusion layer (GDL). It is important to maintain a suitable fastening force of Metal BP, because it influences the power efficiency of the fuel cell stack. After a gasket and a GDL are placed on the metal BP, the reaction force with the displacement is measured. The channel of metal bipolar plate is replaced by a simple geometrical plate. The results of FEM are similar to those of experiment. Therefore mechanical behavior in metal BP of a fuel cell stack can be estimated by using FEM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.175-178
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• 2003

Mechanical behavior of a fuel stack was studied by the orthotropic material model. The fuel stack is mainly composed of bipolar plate (BP), gasket, end plate, membrane electrolyte assembly (MEA), and gas diffusion layer (GDL). Each component is fastened with a suitable pressure. It is very important to maintain a suitable contact pressure of BP, because it affects the efficiency of the fuel cell. This study compared mechanical behavior of various fastening types of the fuel cell stack. Bar, band, and modified band fastening type are used. The band fastening type showed that it reduces total volume of the cell, but it does not improve the contact pressure distribution of each BP. The modified band fastening type was designed by considering the deformations of band fastening type, and it showed a good enhancement of contact pressure distribution.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.95-106
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• 1992

For commercial application of the MCFC, the life time of the MCFC should exceed 40,000 hours, But the life time of the state-of-the-art MCFC was limited to 15,000 hours. The main reasons of the life time limit can be classified as the deficiency of the electrolyte and cathode dissolution. It has been found that the electrolyte deficiency is caused by the continuous evaporation of the electrolyte. However a recent reaserch shows that an electrolyte pumping phenomenon, which implies, the migration of the electrolyte through the gasket material of the external gas manifold, is also the reason of the electrolyte deficiency. Due to the electrolyte pumping phenomenon, positive end cell of the stack suffers the electrolyte deficiency and negative end cell of stack is flooded with electrolyte. Therefore, the cell performance is degraded. The author invented a new manifoldcasing, which prevents the contact between the wet seal and the gasket of the manifold, and gives a complete elimination of an electrolyte pumping effect.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.331-334
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• 2009

Currently, the bipolar plates are fabricated mainly from graphite materials. However, metal bipolar plate are getting most attractive due to their good feasibility of mass production and low cost. In this study, metal bipolar plates for fuel cell Vehicles were developed with a concept based on the straight flow patterns to minimize the pressure drop and spring back. And molded gasket apply to the bipolar plate for improve sealing performance. Results show that the metal bipolar plate have a high potential to replace for graphite materials in fuel cell application.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.125.1-125.1
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• 2010

A high efficiency polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack was developed for pressurized pure hydrogen and oxygen supplying conditions. The design objective for the cell stack was to maximize the electric efficiency and to minimize exhaust-gas emissions from it simultaneously. To achieve this objective, the cell stack was designed to use pure hydrogen and oxygen as fuel and oxidant, respectively, and to be operated under high gas inlet pressures and in a stage-wise dead-end operation mode. Major components constituting the cell stack, such as membrane electrode assembly, bipolar-plate, and gasket, have been developed to meet a target durability even in severe operating conditions: high gas inlet pressures and usage of pure oxygen. A high-power fuel cell stack was assembled using these components to verify the performance. The cell stack showed a good performance in terms of the efficiency and maximum power output.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.20-31
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• 2007

Material characteristics and lifetime evaluation are very important in design procedure to assure the safety and reliability of the rubber components. In this paper, the NBR compound was prepared by sulfur-cure system, and was used in predicting the lifetime of rubber gasket made by the compound. The accelerated material aging was investigated at different temperatures at 120, 140 and $160^{\circ}C$ and aging time from 3 hours to 600 hours at 5, 6, 7 vol %. of $H_2SO_4$ concentrations The rubber strips were placed in acid solution using pyrex g1ass tube. Both ends of pyrex g1ass tube were sealed to avoid evaporation of solution during heating at given time. The material test and accelerated acid-heat aging test were carried out to predict the useful life of NBR rubber gasket for a fuel cell stack. In order to investigate the effects of acid-heat aging on the properties of the NBR, tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness and crosslink-density were measured. The tensile strength decreases as the $H_2SO_4$ concentrations and temperature increase. Results were evaluated using Arrhenius equation.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.554-559
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• 2015

Single cell of PEMFC (polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) is composed of bipolar plates, gasket, GDL and the MEA. Bipolar plate's function is the collecting electricity, helping oxygen/hydrogen gas diffuse evenly and draining the water and heat. In this work, we have conducted experiments to low contact resistance and improve the performance of a $25cm^2$ single cell by using metal forms. We have following experimental cases: 1) Conventional graphite serpentine channel bipolar plate; 2) Channel-less bipolar plate with nickel(Ni) based metal foam which coated by various materials. We focused the difference in contact resistance and performance of the single cell with metal foam depending on various coating materials. The experimental results show the similar performance of single cells between with serpentine channel bipolar plates and with channel-less bipolar plate using metal foams. In addition, single cell with metal foam shows potential to higher performance than conventional channel.