Mathematical and Computational Studies of Fuel Cell Dynamics

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The proposed project is for an interdisciplinary research program on mathematical modeling and computational simulation for fuel cell dynamics. Support is requested for the PI to spend one whole year time with the Penn State Electro-chemical Engine Center (ECEC) that conduct fundamental and applied research on fuel cells and other advanced batteries. Through daily interactions with researchers at ECEC led by Dr. Chaoyang Wang, the PI expects to gain sufficient first hand experiences with fuel cell technology and to aquire both theoretical and practical knowledge on why and how a fuel cell engine works. With these experiences and knowledge, the PI hopes to be able to effectively collaborate with researchers and engineers on mathematical and computational studies of fuel cells. The complicated multiscale, multiphysics, and multicomponent features of fuel cells make it a uniquely challenging multidisciplinary research project and the underlying simulation difficulties provide challenging practical tests for basic research of computational methods such as grid adaptation, multigrid methods and parallel computing. In return, the advanced numerical algorithms are expected to significantly improve the computational efficiency for fuel cell simulations. In particular, the multigrid method (together with sophisticated grid adaptation) on which the PI has much expertise will be a major algorithm to be applied and studied for fuel simulations and a new numerical simulator based on specially tailored adaptive multigrid methods is planned to be developed for fuel cells in collaboration with Dr. Wang's group and their industrial partners. This IGMS project is jointly supported by the MPS Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) and the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS).