Numerical Determination of Two-Phase Material Parameters of a Gas Diffusion Layer Using Tomography Images

Abstract

In this paper, we give a complete description of the process of determining two-phase material parameters for a gas diffusion layer: Starting from a 3D tomography image of the gas diffusion layer the distribution of gas and water phases is determined using the pore morphology method. Using these 3D phase distributions, we are able to determine permeability, diffusivity, and heat conductivity as a function of the saturation of the porous medium with comparatively low numerical costs. Using a reduced model for the compression of the gas diffusion layer, the influence of the compression on the parameter values is studied.