Fault detection for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack by external magnetic field

An original non-invasive approach of fuel cell diagnosis is proposed in order to locate different kinds of faults in PEMFC stacks from magnetic field measurements. The method is based on the solving of an inverse linear problem linking the magnetic field signature outside of the fuel cell to the current density distribution inside. The searched solution is a linear combination of conservative current distribution obtained by a set of electrokinetic problems solved by a finite face element method. As the problem is ill-posed, the solution is stabilized using a truncated singular value decomposition. In this work, 30 sensors are used to perform the magnetic tomography of a PEMFC stack consisting of 100 cells with a large active area of 220 cm(2). External magnetic measurement makes possible to identify 2D or 3D changes of current density distribution induced either by a cell flooding or membrane drying as well as by material degradation in a PEMFC stack. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.