Dual-pathway structural-electrochemical mapping and a multi-resonant metamaterial base for marine PEMFC vibration mitigation

Shipboard vibration can perturb both the mechanical assembly state and gas–water transport of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), while fully transient structural–electrochemical simulation remains computationally expensive. This numerical feasibility study develops a dual-pathway reduced-order mapping framework and evaluates a four-layer membrane-type acoustic metamaterial base for marine vibration mitigation. Six vertical line-spectrum components at 8, 15, 20, 30, 38 and 65 Hz are digitised from published measurements on a 64,000-DWT bulk carrier. One pathway evaluates full-cycle gas-diffusion-layer compression and bipolar-plate/GDL contact response, whereas the other represents vibration-induced gas–water transport disturbance using transmitted acceleration and frequency. Relative to a rigid reference, the structural model predicts reductions of 50.5–66.7% in interface normal-stress RMS and 65.3–76.3% in transmitted payload acceleration. The reduced-order model predicts peak-power-density losses of 1.61–7.73% for the rigid reference and 0.39–2.81% for the metamaterial configuration, corresponding to 63.6–76.0% mitigation of the modelled loss. The most adverse modelled component is 8 Hz, indicating that vibration severity depends jointly on spectral amplitude, mounting transmissibility and electrochemical transport sensitivity. The framework is intended for comparative numerical screening, and dedicated vibration experiments are required for quantitative validation.