A combined finite element-upwind finite volume-Newton's method for liquid-feed direct methanol fuel cell simulations

Pengtao Sun, Guangri Xue, Chaoyang Wang, Jinchao Xu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, a three-dimensional, two-phase transport model of liquid-feed direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which is based on the multiphase mixture formulation and encompasses all components in a DMFC using a single computational domain, is specifically studied and simulated by a combined finite element-upwind finite volume discretization along with Newton's method, where flow, species, charge-transport and energy equations are simultaneously addressed. Numerical simulations in 3D are carried out to explore and design efficient and robust numerical algorithms for the sake of fast and convergent nonlinear iteration. A more reasonable source term of water transport equation, and a series of efficient numerical algorithms and discretizations are specifically designed and analyzed to assist in achieving this goal. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that the convergent and correct physical solutions can be attained within 100 more steps, against the oscillating and long-running nonlinear iterations (up to 5000 steps) operated by standard finite element/volume method without new numerical techniques. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Fuel Cell Science, Engineering, and Technology
Pages851-864
Number of pages14
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2008
Externally publishedYes

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