Bipolar plate, and method for embossing a channel structure

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for embossing a channel structure (3) comprising a plurality of parallel channel portions (5) in a planar metal sheet (11) to form a half-plate (2, 2′), in particular for a bipolar plate (1) of an electrochemical cell, said method having the following steps: providing the planar metal sheet (11) with a uniform initial wall thickness (d5), inserting the metal sheet (11) into a forming tool (12), wherein a base plane (BE) of the sheet (11) defined by the undeformed planar metal sheet (11) is provided to rest on a tool plane defined by a tool part (13) of the forming tool (12), forming the plurality of channel portions (5), each channel portion (5) being designed with two non-parallel flanks (7, 8) in such a way as to allow material from embossing portions (9, 10) of the metal sheet (11), which are located outside the flanks and remain in the base plane (BE) and/or a plane parallel thereto throughout the entire forming process, to be displaced into the flanks (7, 8), each flank (7, 8) extending from the base plane (BE) to an adjacent parallel plane.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.