Multi-Criteria Shape Optimization of Flow Fields for Electrochemical Cells

TL;DR

This paper presents a multi-criteria shape optimization framework for flow fields in electrochemical cells, aiming to enhance cell performance by optimizing flow uniformity, residence time, and wall shear stress.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-criteria optimization approach combining simulation models for flow field design in electrochemical cells.

Findings

Optimized flow field shapes improve flow uniformity.

Multi-criteria approach effectively balances conflicting objectives.

Results demonstrate potential for innovative flow field designs.

Abstract

We consider the shape optimization of flow fields for electrochemical cells. Our goal is to improve the cell by modifying the shape of its flow field. To do so, we introduce simulation models of the flow field with and without the porous transport layer. The latter is less detailed and used for shape optimization, whereas the former is used to validate our obtained results. We propose three objective functions based on the uniformity of the flow and residence time as well as the wall shear stress. After considering the respective optimization problems separately, we use techniques from multi-criteria optimization to treat the conflicting objective functions systematically. Our results highlight the potential of our approach for generating novel flow field designs for electrochemical cells.