Effect of Channel Geometry on Formability of 304 Stainless Steel Bipolar Plates for Fuel Cells—Simulation and Experiments

Abstract

A bipolar plate (BP) is one of the key components of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and accounts for a major portion of their manufacturing cost. Stainless steel is considered as one of the candidate materials for the BPs of the cells because of the short manufacturing process. In this study, the effects of channel geometry on the formability of 304 stainless steel in a stamping process are investigated via numerical simulation and experiments. A finite element (FE) model using ansys, a commercial software, is developed to analyze the effects of selected channel geometry parameters on the formability of stamped stainless steel sheets. Modeling results are compared partly to the results of a series of stamping experiments. Both modeling and experimental results suggest that the draft angle has a greater influence on formability than other parameters in a stamping process.