A Comparative Study of Effect of Bipolar Plate Materials on Contact Resistance and Heat Transfer in a PEMFC Stack

In this paper, a comparative study based on Finite Element Method has been established in order to investigate the effect of bipolar plate materials stress and temperature distribution proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack under functioning conditions. The analysis is conducted for three materials: Graphite BP, stamped uncoated stainless steel SS316L, Niobium coated SS316L. ICR (Interfacial contact resistance) between GDL BP measured each material. current densities clamping force resistance real operating conditions have estimated at different locations stack. results show that GDL/BP depend location especially case graphite corroded SS316L BP. While, Nb allows neglected gradient components