Analysis of the Membrane Humidifier Fault Modes and Its Effects on the Performance of PEMFC

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is one of the most promising energy sources in the future because of its high efficiency and eco friendly property. However, there are several problems to solve in order to commercialize the PEM fuel cell such as heat management, cold start and humidification. Many researchers and companies try to improve the performance of the fuel cell, so the performance of PEMFC is getting better. Another important problem to improve in PEMFC is durability. Durability can be one of the most important factors to commercialize the PEMFC. Usually products produced by companies using fuel cell consist of several parts such as humidifier, heating source, air blower and so on. Usually it is called balance of plant and in order to operate it proper, each part of BOP should operate in a right way. When one part of BOP is fault, the performance of PEMFC can be decreased and the amount of decreased power sometimes can not be large because it is very small amounts. However, the effects of the fault can destroy another part of BOP, so detecting the fault of BOP is very important work. In this study, numerical analysis about the membrane humidifier performed by assuming several fault modes and the performances were recorded. Membrane humidifier using in automobile and vibration, shock from the outer condition can make humidifier malfunction. Various fault modes of membrane humidifier were considered and its effect on performance was portrayed by power curve and I-V curve. The results of this simulation showed that the good performance of membrane humidifier is important factor to get more power from PEMFC and some experimental studies are need to evaluate this simulation result.