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US 2014/0370407 A1Published application
Fuel cell stack discrete header
AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC
InventorsTodd D. Bogumil, Glenn W. Skala, Matthew J. Beutel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fuel cell system comprises a main body including a first partial header and a fastening point. The main body is adapted to be coupled to a plurality of plates forming a fuel cell stack, allowing a single plate design to be used for multiple fuel cell stack lengths having a large differential of energy requirements, affording a durable alignment mechanism for the fuel cell stack, and providing integration flexibility for components and configurations of the fuel cell system.
Claims20
A fuel cell system, comprising:
- a fuel cell plate including a first partial header and a fastening channel;
- and
- a main body including a second partial header and a fastening point, the fastening point coupled to the fuel cell plate and passing through a slot into the fastening channel, the fastening point of the main body physically attaching the main body to the fuel cell plate to form a first header having the first partial header in fluid communication with the second partial header, wherein a portion of the fastening point has a width greater than a width of the slot.
A fuel cell system, comprising:
- a fuel cell plate including:
- a plurality of first partial headers;
- and
- a plurality of fastening channels with individual ones of the fastening channels located between successive ones of the first partial headers;
- and
- a main body including:
- a plurality of second partial headers each individually aligned with one of the first partial headers, and
- a plurality of fastening points individually integrally connected to the main body between successive ones of the second partial headers and oppositely extending with respect to the second partial headers, each of the fastening points coupled to the fuel cell plate and passing into one of the fastening channels through one of a plurality of slots of the fuel cell plate, each of the slots narrower than the fastening points, the fastening points of the main body physically attaching the main body to the fuel cell plate.
5 more elements
A fuel cell system, comprising:
- multiple fuel cell plates, each including:
- multiple semi-circular cross-shaped first partial headers;
- and
- multiple fastening channels with individual ones of the multiple fastening channels located between successive ones of the first partial headers;
- and
- a main body including:
- multiple semi-circular cross-shaped second partial headers each individually aligned with one of the multiple first partial headers of each of the multiple fuel cell plates, with the second partial headers oppositely directed with respect to the first partial headers and in fluid communication with the first partial headers to form multiple first headers, and
- multiple fastening points individually integrally connected to the main body between successive ones of the second partial headers and oppositely extending with respect to the second partial headers, the fastening points each coupled to each of the fuel cell plates with each fastening point passing into one of the fastening channels through common ones of multiple slots of the fuel cell plates each narrower than the fastening points, the fastening points of the main body physically attaching the main body to each of the fuel cell plates thereby forming the multiple first headers.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.