The design of cooling channels in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) plays a crucial role in ensuring uniform temperature distribution within the cell. To address the imbalance between hydrodynamic properties and cooling effect in current cooling channel designs, this paper proposes a novel fractal cooling channel design aimed at enhancing cooling effect of channels and heat transfer characteristics of PEMFCs by optimizing the fluid distribution and enhancing the heat exchange. Through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulations, the influence of fractal parameters and cooling system parameters on cooling performance of fractal cooling channels are explored. The results reveal that, compared to fractal cooling channels with a branch level of 4 and a branch number of 4, those with a branch level of 5 exhibit superior temperature uniformity, with an average temperature of 60.52°C and a corresponding pressure drop of 1120.42 Pa. When cooling water inlet velocity increases, fractal cooling channels with a branch level of 5 show a decreasing trend in average temperatures, accompanied by significant increases in pressure drops. The higher channel height improves temperature uniformity and reduces pressure drop. Furthermore, heat flux and cooling water inlet temperature affect different temperature indices but not pressure drop. Overall, this exploratory study provides a theoretical basis for efficient PEMFC cooling channels.
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