
ISSN Online: 2379-1748
ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-472-4
ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-471-7
3rd Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
ANALYSIS OF LIQUID-GAS TWO-PHASE FLOW PRESSURE DROP SIGNATURE IN MINICHANNELS
Abstract
In this paper, the liquid-gas two-phase flow pressure drop signatures are analyzed for minichannels. The twophase
flow pressure drops are measured in a 2mm×1mm flow channel supplied with air and liquid water. The
ranges of air and water flow rates represent operating conditions of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel
cells. As a PEM fuel cell operates, chemical energy is converted into electrical energy with water and heat
as byproducts. The produced water can pass through the gas diffusion layer (GDL), a porous layer in PEM
fuel cell, and emerges on its surface within the flow channel. This causes liquid-gas two-phase flow in flow
channels. In this study, liquid-gas two-phase flow pressure drops are measured in an ex-situ PEM fuel cell
test section. The experimentally measure pressure drops are compared with three models of two-phase flow
pressure drop. Comparing 108 experimentally measured pressure drop data points with models proposed by
Saisorn and Wongwises [29], English and Kandlikar [24], and Mishima and Hibiki [28] revealed that the latter showed the best prediction capability with a mean absolute percentage error as low as 10%. Moreover,
in this study the distribution of pressure signatures are plotted and analyzed.