NEVADA SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Grant: $90,000 - National Science Foundation - Sep. 14, 2009
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Award Description: This project is to develop advanced numerical techniques in order to perform efficient, accurate and state of the art simulations for two-phase transport model in the cathode of hydrogen proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The computational efficiency and accuracy for solving two-phase transport PEMFC model depends crucially on the partition of mesh for precisely capturing the anisotropic interface of single- and two-phase zones, the design of proper discretization schemes and efficient iterative methods for solving a highly unstable nonlinear system due to the discontinuous and degenerate diffusion coefficient. The PI proposes to develop anisotropic adaptive mesh techniques, and advanced algorithms in both discretization and iteration level in order to design a better discretized model which can be solved more efficiently and accurately by iterative methods on an optimal mesh. More precisely, for anisotropic adaptive mesh method, the PI proposes an a posteriori error estimator based on error equaldistribution by equalidistributing edge length of finite element in Hessian matrix-metric. For the discontinuous and degenerate diffusion coefficient, the PI proposes Kirchhoff transformation to skillfully reformulate the original PEMFC model to a linear Poisson’s equation, and Newton’s method to efficiently solve the resulting inverse Kirchhoff transformation. In particular, for the case of wet gas channel in PEMFC, in which Kirchhoff transformation brings the discontinuity back to the resulting Kirchhoff’s variable on the interface of gas channel and gas diffusion layer, the PI proposes Dirichlet-Neumann alternating iterative domain decomposition method to resolve this interfacial boundary problem. On the discretization level, the PI will design a combined finite element-upwind finite volume method to overcome the dominant convection in gas channel of PEMFC without losing the benefits of FEM. For nonlinear iteration schemes, the PI will employ either Picard’s or Newton’s method to linearize nonlinear PEMFC model, combining with specifically preconditioned Krylov-type solver. The PI hopes to develop more efficient and accurate numerical simulations for two-phase transport model in the cathode of hydrogen PEMFC by uniting modern numerical techniques of adaptivity and multilevel solvers with standard numerical methods. Since PEMFC involves electrochemical reactions, current distribution, two-phase flow transport and heat transfer, a comprehensive mathematical modeling of multiphysics system and high performance computing combining with the advanced numerical techniques shall make a significant impact in the development of fuel cell technology. However, because of the complexity of the underlying mathematical model, current numerical techniques are far from being satisfactory due to poor performances on both efficiency and accuracy. Hence, advanced numerical techniques are urgently required to significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of fuel cell simulation. The proposed numerical techniques in this project will challenge a number of critical numerical difficulties, which are caused by large discontinuity, degeneracy, nonlinearity, dominant convection and anisotropy, by designing and analyzing the efficient numerical methods toward fast convergence and precise solutions. The PI will utilize the proposed efficient numerical methods to eventually develop an efficient and robust in-house code for PEM fuel cell simulations by achieving one to two orders of magnitude improvement on the existing commercial fuel cell packages in computational performance. The PI hopes that the proposed numerical techniques and numerical package for PEMFC will lead to a significant progress and likely breakthrough in the field of computational fuel cell technology, substantially impacting the commercialization of fuel cells and further helping in the transition to hydrogen economy.
Project Description: Not Started
Jobs Summary: None (Total jobs reported: 0)
Project Status: Not Started
This award's data was last updated on Sep. 14, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
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