Study on interfacial leakage characteristics of rubber sealing under temperature cycle conditions in PEM fuel cell

Abstract The amount of leakage is the only direct indicator of the sealing performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). In this work, a predictive model is developed to quantitatively evaluate the variation of leakage for a PEMFC under temperature cycling conditions. The method first uses the Lattice-Boltzmann method to simulate the gas flow within the contact interfacial gap at various heights. Then the finite element method is used to analyze the local and macroscale contact state of the sealing interface and to clarify the effect of contact stresses on the interfacial gap height. Finally, the generalized Maxwell model, which considers time-temperature transfer and stiffness growth, is used to calculate the interfacial contact stresses under temperature cycling. The validity of the model was verified by comparison with experimental data from the available literature. Further analysis showed that reduced start-up temperature exacerbated the stress relaxation effect and decreased the service life of the seal material. When the start-up temperature is reduced from 25 °C to −20 °C, the model predicts that the service life of the PEMFC will be reduced by 100 temperature cycles or more. The leakage variation in a cycle was also discussed, and it was found that the leakage fluctuation became more and more significant as the number of cycles increased, weakening system reliability.