High precision and efficient simulation of large-size proton exchange membrane fuel cells incorporated with a novel alternative cooling method

•Four coolant channels combinations including distribution zones are analyzed through a single heat transfer model.•Effects of coolant channels on a large-size whole PEM fuel cell are elucidated through a 3D + 1D model.•Trade-off between parasitic power and mass flow rate uniformity and distribution is needed when designing coolant channels.•A novel computation method of cooling process is proposed. Coolant channels play a significant role in managing heat and water transport and highly affect the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, the traditional trial-and-error method using experiments leads to an undesirably high development cost and time. Meanwhile, the simulation faces a huge challenge with respect to the large-scale fuel cell with complex coolant channel structures. Herein, we first develop a single heat transfer model to elucidate the heat transfer capacity of coolant channels based on a large-scale fuel cell with an active area of 335 cm2. Four types of coolant channels are developed and evaluated using the single heat transfer model. The results show that a trade-off between parasitic power and distribution uniformity, as well as heat dissipation, is needed when designing coolant channels. Moreover, a three-dimensional + one-dimensional model is developed to simulate the complex multi-physics transport and electrochemical reactions in fuel cells. To improve the model stability and efficiency, a novel computation method for cooling strategy, named linearly varying temperature convection (LVTC), is proposed for the first time, to allow for neglecting complex coolant channels in large-scale simulations. This novel method achieves great prediction performance in terms of fuel cell performance with a maximum deviation of 1.126 %, inside multi-physics distributions, and temperature difference. This study can help understand the role of coolant channels for the heat and water management inside fuel cells and provide a high-precision and high-efficient model to accelerate the design of novel coolant channels. [Display omitted]