Abstract
Current strategies for mitigating power loss due to cathode flooding in polymer electrolyte fuel cells are aimed at avoiding the unstable two-phase slug flow regime in the air delivery microchannels by delivering parasitically expensive excessive air flow rates. In this work, we investigate ways to stabilize the slug flow regime and recover voltage by applying low cost cathode pressure perturbations. We experimentally investigate the voltage response to the magnitude and frequency of pressure perturbations applied to a simulated fuel cell stack. The results are applicable to active fuel cell water management.