Given automotive PEMFCs’ susceptibility to thermal runaway and uneven temperature distribution under high-power-density operation, this study proposes a novel embedded pulsating heat pipe cooling system. The core innovations of this work are threefold, fundamentally distinguishing it from prior PHP cooling approaches: (1) an embedded PHP cooling plate design that integrates the heat pipe within a unified copper plate, eliminating the need for external attachment or complex bipolar plate channels and enhancing structural compactness; (2) a system-level modeling methodology that derives an effective thermal conductivity (kₑff ≈ 65, 000 W·m−1·K−1) from a thermal resistance network for seamless integration into a full-stack CFD model, significantly simplifying the simulation of the passive PHP component; and (3) a parametric system-level optimization of the secondary active cooling loop. Numerical results demonstrate that the system achieves an exceptional maximum temperature difference (ΔTₘax) of less than 1. 7 K within the PEMFC stack at an optimal coolant flow rate of 0. 11 m/s, far surpassing the performance of conventional liquid cooling baselines. This three-layer framework (PHP heat transfer, cooling plate conduction, liquid coolant convection) offers robust theoretical and design support for high-efficiency, passive-dominant thermal control of automotive fuel cells.
Zhao et al. (Tue,) studied this question.