IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v321y2025ics0360544225011594.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nozzle spray-cooling coupled PEMFC stack radiator: Thermal-hydraulic performance and integrated correlations

Author

Listed:
  • Souby, M. Mohamed
  • Prabakaran, Rajendran
  • Kim, Sung Chul

Abstract

As the automotive industry shifts towards electrification to combat climate change, proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stacks present a viable solution for heavy-duty trucks with extended ranges. This paper addresses the challenge of PEMFC cooling using the evaporative effect of exhaust water injected into a stack radiator via a nozzle. An experimental optimization of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of a nozzle spray cooling-integrated stack radiator under diverse operating conditions was performed. The effect of the nozzle orientation and the impact of air velocity/temperature, coolant flowrate/temperature, and spray flowrate/temperature were investigated. The findings revealed that the effect of nozzle orientation on the performance decreased as the air velocity increased. Furthermore, the spray cooling performance was highly sensitive to changes in the air velocity and spray flow rate, whereas the coolant-side variables had a relatively low impact. The optimal thermal performance was obtained when the spray flowrate was set to 0.30 LPM, and the nozzle was oriented at 60°. Compared with the air-cooled radiator, the heat rejection improved by 167.7 %, whereas the air pressure drop increased by 124.1 % when applying the spray. Two novel empirical correlations were established to accurately predict the heat transfer enhancement and spray cooling efficiency with mean absolute errors of 5.3 % and 2.87 %, respectively. These results highlight the promising application of spray cooling in stack radiators for fuel-cell vehicles, and the correlations provide crucial guidance for the design of spray-cooled radiators for future electric vehicles.

Suggested Citation

  • Souby, M. Mohamed & Prabakaran, Rajendran & Kim, Sung Chul, 2025. "Nozzle spray-cooling coupled PEMFC stack radiator: Thermal-hydraulic performance and integrated correlations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:321:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225011594
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.135517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225011594
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.135517?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yu, Xianxian & Cai, Shanshan & Tu, Zhengkai & Chan, Siew Hwa, 2024. "Stack-level analysis of the performance variation in air-cooled PEMFC with Z-type anode manifold," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yannick Heynen & Ralf Liedtke & Michael Schier & Florian Heckert, 2025. "Experimental Investigation of the Influence of Climatic Conditions and Vehicle Dynamics on the Thermal Management System of a Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-25, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fan, Lixin & Tu, Zhengkai & Cai, Shanshan & Miao, Bin & Ding, Ovi Lian & Chen, Yongtao & Chan, Siew Hwa, 2025. "Design principles and analysis of manifold design in a large-scale PEMFC stack," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    2. Tu, Xikai & Lv, Jin & Wu, Jin & Luo, Xiaobing & Tu, Zhengkai, 2025. "Experimental investigation of a novel open cathode air-cooled fuel cell stack design featuring simultaneous inlet blowing and outlet suction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:321:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225011594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.