Final published version
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - A Water Monitoring System for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells Based on Ultrasonic Lamb Waves
T2 - An Ex-Situ Proof of Concept
AU - Dou, Zehua
AU - Fang, Bowen
AU - Tropf, Laura
AU - Hoster, Harry
AU - Schmidt, Hagen
AU - Czarske, Jürgen
AU - Weik, David
PY - 2023/11/3
Y1 - 2023/11/3
N2 - Up to date, the efficiencies of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are limited by the water flooding issue. Water monitoring systems, which are a crucial step to overcoming these flooding-related problems, are mostly either invasive or compromise on the temporal resolution and field of view. Thus, we propose an ultrasonic-Lamb-waves-based, real-time, and nondestructive water monitoring system. Briefly, ultrasonic transducers are mounted on the back side of bipolar plates (BPPs) exciting Lamb waves along flow channels incorporated in BPPs. Echo signals from water droplets in the channels are also received by the transducers. Thus, with the knowledge of Lamb wave propagation velocity, water droplets are spatially resolved by the time of flight of each droplet echo. Meanwhile, the energy of each droplet-induced echo wave packet is used to quantify the local flooding status. We have implemented a flexible and generic system adaptable to various flow field designs. The working principle was demonstrated for ex situ conditions with a BPP with a 25-cm2 active area. A water sensitivity of at least 50 nL was realized, allowing for studying droplet and slug flows in PEMFCs. A 1.3-mm spatial resolution and a 2-kHz temporal resolution were simultaneously achieved. The high-performance water monitoring opens new horizons to study dynamic water evolution in channels of PEMFCs using cost-effective instrumentation, which may pave the way toward more efficient high-power PEMFCs with increased lifetimes.
AB - Up to date, the efficiencies of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are limited by the water flooding issue. Water monitoring systems, which are a crucial step to overcoming these flooding-related problems, are mostly either invasive or compromise on the temporal resolution and field of view. Thus, we propose an ultrasonic-Lamb-waves-based, real-time, and nondestructive water monitoring system. Briefly, ultrasonic transducers are mounted on the back side of bipolar plates (BPPs) exciting Lamb waves along flow channels incorporated in BPPs. Echo signals from water droplets in the channels are also received by the transducers. Thus, with the knowledge of Lamb wave propagation velocity, water droplets are spatially resolved by the time of flight of each droplet echo. Meanwhile, the energy of each droplet-induced echo wave packet is used to quantify the local flooding status. We have implemented a flexible and generic system adaptable to various flow field designs. The working principle was demonstrated for ex situ conditions with a BPP with a 25-cm2 active area. A water sensitivity of at least 50 nL was realized, allowing for studying droplet and slug flows in PEMFCs. A 1.3-mm spatial resolution and a 2-kHz temporal resolution were simultaneously achieved. The high-performance water monitoring opens new horizons to study dynamic water evolution in channels of PEMFCs using cost-effective instrumentation, which may pave the way toward more efficient high-power PEMFCs with increased lifetimes.
KW - Electrical and Electronic Engineering
KW - Instrumentation
U2 - 10.1109/tim.2023.3329101
DO - 10.1109/tim.2023.3329101
M3 - Journal article
VL - 72
JO - IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
JF - IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
SN - 0018-9456
M1 - 9601112
ER -