Influence of process parameters on the quality of flexible forming of 316L bipolar plate

Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

^* Corresponding author: yxu@imr.ac.cn

Abstract

Bipolar plate is one of the most important components of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. In this paper, taking the micro channel flexible forming process of 316L stainless steel sheet as the research object, the influence of process parameters on the forming quality of micro flow channel is analysed, so as to provide guidance for the flexible forming of bipolar plate. The effect of equipment pressure and hardness of soft film on micro flow channel forming has been studied. In particular, the effect of different grain sizes on the forming quality was studied. The results show that the increase of equipment pressure and the decrease of soft film hardness are conducive to the improvement of the forming depth of bipolar plate. Under the same conditions, the increase of grain size reduces the difficulty of forming, and the larger the grain size, the larger the forming height and channel filling rate. However, with the increase of grain size, the surface roughness of the bipolar plate increases and the wall thickness of some parts of the runner is uneven.