Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In this manuscript, conformal mapping is applied to a rib/channel domain of a polymer-electrolyte-fuel-cell diffusion medium. The analysis leads to the calculation of an effective diffusion-medium thickness, which can subsequently be used in 1-D simulations to account for the average rib/channel 2-D geometric effect. Extensions of the analysis to anisotropic and multilayer diffusion media are also given. Both equations and figures show the impact on a given variable at the catalyst layer of having a combined conducting/nonconducting boundary across from it.