E Alizadeh - Assistant professor, Malek-Ashtar University of Technology, Fuel Cell Technology of Research Lab
M Barzegari - PH.D. Student, Malek-Ashtar University of Technology, Fuel Cell Technology of Research Lab
M Momenifar - Senior Engineer, Malek-Ashtar University of Technology, Fuel Cell Technology of Research Lab

This paper develops a PEMFC model to study the contact pressure distribution over the membrane electrode assembly using experimental setup and finite element method (FEM). Two-dimensional FEM model used to decrease the calculation time of the simulation. The simulation results have good agreement with experimental results obtained via pressure sensitive films. The experimental setup prepared for single cell and fifteen cells stack. Moreover, the effects of some parameters such as thickness of the end plates and position of the cell on the contact pressure distribution over the MEA were investigated. The results reveal that optimizing mentioned parameters leads to design PEMFCs with proper contact pressure distribution over the MEA.

PEM fuel cell, Contact pressure distribution, End plate, Pressure sensitive film, Finite element method