• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3423-3428
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• 2007

This paper shows that inlet humidity condition at cathode side is one of dominant parameters affecting the performance of PEMFC. To investigate effects of inlet humidity condition, the performance measurements were conducted for a single PEMFC with two operating variables : cathode relative humidity and dry condition in anode dry. The fuel cell employed for the experiments is a unit PEMFC with a 25$Cm^2$, Nafion$^(R)$112 membrane. As a result of this study, the cell performance is getting higher by increasing inlet humidity condition at cathode side. The cell performance is different from each operating temperature an it has maximum30% higher than dry condition at 60$^{\circ}C$ operating temperature with 80% relative humidity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.12 s.255
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• pp.1228-1235
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• 2006

PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) is a low temperature fuel cell and has many probabilities of commercial use. However, water management is one of the serious technical problems for commercialization. It is necessary to understand the relationship between operation conditions and water behavior in PEMFC channel because it affects fuel cell performance. In this paper, the distribution of current density according to inlet humidity condition is mainly observed and discussed. If the anode inlet is well humidified, electro-osmotic drag is very active. For this reason, current density is very high at inlet side and the distribution is non-uniform.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2828-2833
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• 2008

Water management is one of many operating parameters, which influences the performance and stability of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Local humidity condition including liquid water saturation has profound impacts on the distributions of overpotentials, current density, and membrane water content. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of the inlet humidity variation on the performance of a PEMFC of $9\;cm^2$ active cell area with serpentine flow fields. The results showed that the performance of the simulated PEMFC remained at an almost same level when the cathode inlet humidity was changed from 100% to 60%, while reaching its maximum at air humidity of 80%. However, further decrease in the cathode inlet humidity below 40% started to significantly deteriorate the performance of the PEMFC. The variations of overpotentials, membrane water content, etc. due to the change in the cathode inlet humidity were also discussed.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.397-407
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• 2004

It is well known that some key parameters, such as evaporating temperature, refrigerant mass flow rate, face velocity and inlet air temperature, have significant influence on the evaporator performance. However performance studies related to a humid environment have been very scarce. It is demonstrated that the refrigerant mass flow rate, heat flux, water condensing rate and air outlet temperature of the evaporator significantly increase with air inlet relative humidity. As the air inlet relative humidity increases, the latent and total heat transfer rates increase, but the sensible heat transfer rate decreases. The purpose of this study is to provide experimental data on the effect of air inlet relative humidity on the air and refrigerant side pressure drop characteristics for a slit fin-tube heat exchanger. Experiments were carried out under the conditions of inlet refrigerant saturation temperature of 7 $^{\circ}C$ and mass flux varied from 150 to 250 kg/$m^2$s. The condition of air was dry bulb temperature of 27$^{\circ}C$, air Velocity Varied from 0.38 to 1.6 m/s. Experiments Showed that air Velocity decreased 8.7% on 50% of relative humidity 40% of that at degree of superheat of 5$^{\circ}C$, which resulted that pressure drop of air and refrigerant was decreased 20.8 and 8.3% for 50% of relative humidity as compared to 40%, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.319-328
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• 1995

In this study, the experiment with 2rows-2columns fin-tube heat exchanger under forced convection and frosting condition is performed. The influence of each operating condition(the temperature of air, the humidity of air, the velocity of air, the temperature of coolant) on the growth of frost layer, air-side pressure drop, and characteristics of heat transfer is investigated. The experimental results show that the frost thickness increases rapidly in the early stage of frost formation and increases linearly after sometime. The frost thickness increases with the increase of the inlet air humidity and velocity and the decrease of inlet air temperature and coolant temperature. It is also found that the total energy transfer rate increases with the increase of inlet air temperature and velocity and with the decrease of inlet air humidity and coolant temperature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.35-38
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• 2007

The comparisons between measured performance of lab-scale PEMFC and calculation were conducted to understand the detail phenomena of PEMFC for the various inlet oxygen humidity of cathode side. Experiments were performed at $65^{\circ}C$ operation temperature and different inlet humidity conditions such as 40%, 60% and 80%. We used the MEA manufactured by oneself which include $Nafion^{(R)}$ 112 membrane, Nafion solution 20%, and carbon paper(E-TEK). As a result of this experiment, cell performance was getting higher by increasing inlet humidity condition at cathode side because ion conductivity of electrolyte membrane is increased. A 3D CFD simulation model of PEMFC was developed using commercially available CFD code that is one of the STAR-CD module, es-pemfc under same operating conditions. Model calculations results were compared with experimental ones on the polarization curves and calculation results are in good agreement with the experimental ones. Local water distribution and current density inside PEMFC are discussed in detail.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.16-22
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• 2002

This study was conducted to find performance evaluation method for automobile air conditioner. Experimental facilities were constructed to simulate wide range of operating condition for the automobile air conditioner. Compressor speed was controled by variable speed electric motor and the power was measured through torque transducer and tachometer was used to measure compressor speed. Parametric studies were conducted in this study, to figure out effect of environment variables on the performance of the automobile air conditioner. The environmental variables are inlet air temperature, relative humidity and air flow rate for the evaporator and inlet air temperature and air flow rate for the condenser. Compressor speed is also changed. The results of this study shows that air flow rate of the evaporator is more sensitive to the performance of the automobile air conditioner than the other variables. However relative humidity of the inlet air of the evaporator strongly affects capacity rather that COP.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.24 no.E2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2008

This work investigated the methodology to simultaneously optimize the ozone and relative humidity composition for the $NO_x$ degradation using soil biofilter. Experiments were made as a function of inlet ozone concentration ($0{\sim}1,770\;ppb$) and relative humidity ($38{\sim}81%$). Factorial design ($2^2+3$) and response surface methodology by central composite designs were used to examine the role of two factors and optimal response condition on $NO_x$ degradation. It was found that a second-order response surface model can properly interpret the experimental data with an $R^2$-value of 0.9730 and F-value of 71.83, based on which the maximum $NO_x$ degradation was predicted up to 92.8% within our experimental conditions.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.191-195
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• 2007

In this study, we estimated the performance of PEMFC's unit cell as changing operating temperature in different inlet humidity condition at cathode side but anode dry, and tried to match experimental results with 1-dimensional simulation. We used $Nafion^{\circledR}112$ membrane and a self-manufactured PEMFC with active area of $25cm^{2}$ was used in this study. The range of operating temperature was $40{\sim}70^{\circ}C$ and oxygen through bubbled humidity chamber was supplied $0{\sim}80$% humidity condition as changing water temperature in humidity chamber. For figuring out governing equations, represent water contents in electrolyte membrane, the linear forward difference method was applied about time progress and quadratic central difference method was used about space progress. It was assumed that pressure terms were linearly changed due to thin electrolyte membrane. In low operating temperature condition, $40{\sim}60^{\circ}C$, increasing temperature rarely effected cell performance but we can see performance drop at $70^{\circ}C$. By modifying Henrry's constant and/or diffusion coefficient, the modified one-dimensional model was accomplished for calculation.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.98-104
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• 2010

The moisture in the atmosphere exerts a lot of influence upon Gas turbine engine performances. There is a noticeable influence of wet air at the summer sea level, high flight mach number and low engine rpm increasingly. An altitude Engine Test Facility is used to accomplish the engine performance tests at dry air condition and wet air condition, through which engine performance results is revealed. Also, Gas turbine Simulation Program is used to predict the variation of engine performance due to inlet humidity. In the result, net thrust and specific fuel consumption measured -2.826% and 1.325%, respectively at wet air condition compared to dry air condition.