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Bipolar plates are the most important of fuel cells components. These plates are made with different methods such as machining, molding and forming and they are made of variety materials such as graphite, composite and metal plates. In this research, forming of metallic bipolar plates with pin-type pattern from stainless steel 304 with 0.11mm thickness is investigated numerically and experimentally using hydroforming process in convex die. In this regard, several parameters such as applied pressure, pin geometry, and depth to width ratio of the profiles has been changed and the experimental and simulation results of formed profiles, filling percent, thickness distribution and thinning percent of the formed parts have been compared. The results have been shown that no safe sample has been reached in depth to width ratio 1, while safe samples have been formed in depth to width ratio 0.67 in circle (a/b=1) and ellipse (a/b=0.7) samples and all samples in depth to width ratio 0.33 at 300 MPa pressure level in viewpoint of filling and thinning percentage. In general, increasing the small diameter to big diameter ratio (a/b) and decreasing the depth to width ratio (h/w) makes the thinning percent and filling percent more desirable.

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In recent years the use of metallic bipolar plates for fuel cells is considered. Several studies have been conducted on the various methods of forming these plates. Most of this research has been done on the serpentine flow fields. While in some cases that the pressure drop is important factor, the pin-type flow fields shows good performance. In this research, hydroforming of metallic bipolar plates with circular pin-type pattern from stainless steel 304 with 0.11mm thickness is investigated experimentally and numerically. For this purpose, the effect of geometrical parameters such as the die wall angle, the die chamfer dimension, the depth-to-width ratio of the die, and forming pressure on the profiles, filling percent, thickness distribution and thinning percent of the formed parts are investigated. In this regard, two dies with wall angle of 0 and 15 degree were prepared. Then experimental tests were done at different pressures. After performing the required tests, the results show that the die wall angle leads to a more uniform thickness distribution and higher precision of the parts profile. Also the suitable range of die geometrical parameters was determined.

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Metal bipolar plates are key components in fuel cells that are considered as the best alternative to replace graphite plates. Material selection in bipolar plates depends on its weight and corrosion resistance. Metallic bipolar plate can be considered as the best alternative instead of graphite and composite plates. One of the new processes in order to produce this plat is gas blow forming process. In this study, forming of AA8111 bipolar plates with 200 µm thickness in concave groove dies is investigated by gas blow forming process at various pressures (20, 30 and40 bar) and temperatures (300 and 400 ° C). The filling percent of die at various wall angles and depth to width ratios are examined. According to the dimension of channels, maximum and minimum thinning percentage at high temperature and pressure are investigated. Results show that at wall angle of ∝=0, and the depth to width ratio of h/w=0.5, rupture occurs at pressure of 20bar and at temperature of 300° C and at pressures of 20 and 40 bar at temperature of 400° C. The best channel filling with lowest thinning obtained at ∝=15 and h/w=0.5.

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Metallic bipolar plate is one of the main parts of fuel cell. Several methods were used by researchers to manufacturing bipolar plate such as stamping, hydroforming and electromagnet forming. The effect of process parameters on dimensional accuracy of metallic bipolar plates in rubber pad forming process has been investigated in this study. ABAQUS/Standard finite element software is used to simulate the process. The accuracy of the results of simulation process is evaluated by using experimental results. To perform experimental procedures, rigid die with parallel flow field is used to form SS316 bipolar plate with 0.1 mm thick. For this purpose the effect of punch load, rubber hardness, rubber thickness and clearance between die and container on the dimensional accuracy of the formed parts is investigated. In this regard, rubber layer with hardness of 55, 70, 85 and 90 Shore A and thickness of 1.5mm up to 5.5mm were used. The result show difference between lateral and central channel depth, the amount of disparity will decrease by increasing in punch load, as a result the dimensional accuracy will increase. According to the result, increase in hardness and thickness of the rubber layer lead to improve the dimensional accuracy. Also considering clearance between die and container decrease the difference between lateral and central channel depth and eventually cause increasing in dimensional accuracy of formed part.

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In recent years, development of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) has been considered to generate electricity and heat. Among main components of PEMFCs, bipolar plates (BPPs) have significant influence on cost and performance of the system. Metallic BPPs, formed using thin sheets, have been developed as alternative to conventional graphite plates because of advantages such as suitable cost, mechanical strength and power density. Flexibility of the sheets and spring back during forming process make dimensional errors inevitable and lead to inappropriate contact pressure distribution between BPPs and gas diffusion layer (GDL), resulting in decrease of fuel cell performance. Excessive accuracy in BPP production leads to increase the final cost and decrease the general usability of the technology. Therefore, to reduce unnecessary costs, managing design process and improving efficiency, analysis of BPP dimensional errors is done using finite element method and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). First, contact model of the metallic BPP and GDL is developed and heights of each channel and each rib of BPP are fully parameterized due to stochastic variations of dimensional errors with normal distribution. Then, contact pressure distributions of GDL (Pave, Pstd) for different dimensional errors are obtained by MCSs. Increasing dimensional tolerance from 0.015 mm to 0.075 mm, average contact pressure (Pave) has decreased by 11% and standard deviation of contact pressure (Pstd) has increased up to 90%. Namely desirable distribution of GDL pressure is reduced by increasing the dimensional error and suitable dimensional tolerances for BPPs can be determined according to engineering requirements.

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In the present study, the effect of parameters of autogenous pulsed Nd: YAG laser welding process on the lap joint of a 316L stainless steel foil with a thickness of 100 µm to be used as bipolar plates of polymeric fuel cell was investigated. For this purpose, the statistical tools, the analysis of variance and the various diagrams were used to analyze the data by response surface methodology. The peak power (130 to 650 W), pulse durability (1.5 to 3.5 ms), and welding frequency (14 to 18 Hz) were considered as input parameters. The mentioned statistical method was able to predict the effect of welding parameters by developing second-order polynomials, so that the total error including the repeatability error and the lack of fit error for shear strength model, weld undercut model, and weld underfill model obtained 2, 8 and 3, respectively. The defects of weld undercut and lack of penetration were identified as most important factors affecting the shear strength. The laser power is as the main parameter in this process and the impact of it on the shear strength of the weld, the weld undercut and the weld underfill is calculated 64, 62 and 66%, respectively. Finally, the maximum shear strength with the value of 522 MPa is achieved at a peak power of 260 W, pulsed duration of 3 ms and welding frequency of 17 Hz. In this case, the weld undercut is determined as 3 micrometers.

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In addition to the need for lightweight properties, the metallic bipolar plates in the PEM fuel cells should work in a humid and acidic environment. Due to its low density and excellent corrosion resistance, titanium is a proper candidate for manufacturing bipolar plates. In this paper, the manufacturing of bipolar plates made of commercially pure titanium with an initial thickness of 0.1 mm was investigated using the stamping process. A four-channel die with a parallel flow field was used in the experiments. To estimate the formability of microchannels of the bipolar plates, the response surface method, genetic algorithm, and adaptive neural fuzzy inference system were employed. Die clearance, stamping speed, and friction coefficient between the sheet and die were considered input variables, whereas the die filling rate was as output. The designed experiments using the response surface method were used to train the meta-heuristic techniques. The results showed that the regression model obtained from the response surface method predicts the die filling rate with acceptable accuracy. Furthermore, the coefficients of the equation obtained from the regression have been improved using the genetic algorithm and the error rate has been reduced by about 53%. Finally, an adaptive neural fuzzy inference system was used to predict the die filling. The results showed that the proposed system is very feasible and approximates the maximum filling rate with high accuracy.