Data-driven sensitivity analysis of contact resistance to assembly errors for proton-exchange membrane fuel cells

The proton-exchange membrane fuel cell is a promising power source for automobile industry because of its zero pollution. However, its stack structure always faces increased contact resistance caused by assembly errors, leading to substantial energy loss during the working period. To enhance its output performance, the influence of assembly errors on contact resistance is studied for proton-exchange membrane fuel cell. The mechanical simulation model of fuel cell assembly process is established to provide contact resistance distribution with different assembly errors. An improved global sensitivity analysis method is proposed to evaluate the influence coefficient of each assembly error term on contact resistance based on a series of randomized simulation data. The case study of a single-layer fuel cell demonstrates the proposed method achieves higher efficiency than traditional sensitivity analysis methods, and finds out key assembly errors in regard to reducing contact resistance.