Simulation analysis of hydrogen fuel cell heat exchanger structure on cold start performance
LIU Yangyang
CUI Wanxin
BAO Zunjun
ZHANG Shuhan
KONG Xiang'an
LÜ Chengju
CHEN Zhongyan
LI Xinhai
Abstract：To solve the problem of difficult start of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC)in ultra-low temperature environment,a solution to the difficult cold startup of hydrogen cells is proposed.By generating high-temperature gas with a hydrogen burner,the coolant is heated by a heat exchanger,and the stack temperature is improved by a small cycle coolant to reduce the cold startup time and improve the cold startup performance of fuel cells.The computational fluid dynamics(CFD)method is used to establish a three-dimensional model of the shell-and-tube heat exchanger based on AVL_FIRE software,and the heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger is numerically analyzed.In view of the low heat exchange efficiency and uneven temperature distribution of the initial model,four optimization schemes are proposed,including shortening the length of the heat exchanger inlet and and adjusting the distribution of copper tubes,setting baffles to change the airflow path,increasing the diameter of the fluid inlet pipe,and reducing the length of the heat exchanger to eliminate the low-efficiency heat exchange area at the tail.The simulation results show that the fourth optimization scheme increases the temperature of outlet cooling water by 36 K compared with the inlet temperature,which meets the requirements of the cold start system for the temperature rise of the cooling water and is the best option.
Keywords：proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC)low-temperature cold startheat exchangernumerical simulation
Publication Date：2025-09-30
Online Publishing Date：2026-05-22(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：10( 46-54,67 )