Scaling effect of flow channels in fuel cells

This thesis is dedicated for understanding the transport phenomena in flow channels of fuel cells. Especially, the scaling behavior of flow channels in micro scale is of interest. Microfabrication technique has been employed to fabricate miniature fuel cell prototypes for experiments. All the prototypes successfully demonstrated appreciable performances.; Alternatively, three dimensional fuel cell models have been developed to aid the understanding of transport phenomena. The model results have been compared with experimental results measured with actual fuel cell prototypes. During this process, novel photopolymer flow channels have been developed to realize rapid prototyping in cost effective way. Certain discrepancy has been observed between model results and experimental data that comes from the complexity of two phase flow in the cathode.