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Investigation on three-stage stamping of micro-channels with titanium ultra-thin sheet used for PEM fuel cell bipolar plates

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Abstract

To reduce the weight and volume, and extend the life of the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) which is considered as a kind of near zero emission green energy, titanium ultra-thin sheet is selected to fabricate the core components — bipolar plates for its smaller density and high corrosion resistance. In order to break through the bottlenecks in the manufacture of micro-channels with big ratio of depth and width, a kind of three-stage stamping was investigated for its characters such as high productivity and low cost. Finite element (FE) simulation and optimization of three-stage stamping was carried out considering the reduction of thickness by analyzing the effect of the radius of punch and female die corner, punch displacement, and ratio of rib and channel width, etc. Then, the mold was designed, and experiments were performed using a servo drive machine. The arc design of punch end in the first stage can decrease the reduction of thickness from 47 to 22%. The best ratio between rib and channel width is 0.4–0.6, and radius of final channel corner is 0.15 mm. Experimental results of three-stage stamping show that the max reduction of thickness is about 24%, which is similar with that obtained from FE simulation. Microstructure with uniform small grain size and high surface quality are both helpful for improving the properties of bipolar plates required by PEMFC. This means that the developed three-stage stamping process is very suitable for massive manufacturing the bipolar plates with titanium ultra-thin sheet.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (No. JCKY2020203B056); the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20222010); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51875128, No. 51905362); Six Talent Peaks in Jiangsu Province (GDZB-069); and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (No. 20KJA460003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Electric Engineering, Robotics and Microsystems Center, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215131, People’s Republic of China

    Qi Zhong, Risheng Hua, Chunju Wang, Lidong Cheng, Haidong He & Feng Chen

  2. College of Mechanical Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215009, China

    Zhenwu Ma

Authors
  1. Qi Zhong
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  2. Risheng Hua
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  3. Chunju Wang
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  4. Lidong Cheng
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  6. Haidong He
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  7. Feng Chen
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation was performed by Qi Zhong, Risheng Hua, and Chunju Wang. Data collection was performed by Qi Zhong, Risheng Hua, Lidong Cheng, and Zhenwu Ma. Analysis was performed by Qi Zhong, Risheng Hua, Lidong Cheng, Chunju Wang, Haidong He, and Feng Chen. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chunju Wang or Haidong He.

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Zhong, Q., Hua, R., Wang, C. et al. Investigation on three-stage stamping of micro-channels with titanium ultra-thin sheet used for PEM fuel cell bipolar plates. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 127, 1377–1389 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11618-4

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