Study on Factors Affecting Sealing Performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell End Plate

Abstract

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell is an electrochemical power generation device. Leakage can cause it to degrade or even lead to an explosion. Fuel cell end plate sealing is one of the causes of leakage. In this paper, the hydrogen inlet sealing structure of the end plate is taken as the research object. Then the mechanical contact model of rubber sealing ring is established. Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic constitutive model and FEM are used to analyse the influence of its initial compression, sealing gas pressure and operating temperatures on sealing performance. The results show that the Von Mises stress and contact stress of the sealing ring are distributed symmetrically. Both of them rise up with the increase of initial compression and sealing gas pressure, but reduce with the increase of the operating temperatures. This study can provide reference for the sealing design of proton exchange membrane fuel cell end plates.