Flow Plate With Through-Openings for Compact Humidifier Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing humidifiers for electrochemical systems and HVAC applications face inefficiencies in moisture exchange across water transfer membranes, leading to increased costs and reduced durability due to suboptimal design of flow plates and channel structures.
Innovation Solution
The design of flow plates with through-openings and guide structures that allow gas to flow perpendicularly across the plate, promoting homogeneous moisture distribution and maximizing water transfer rates, while minimizing membrane area and production costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If the area of water transfer membranes is minimized to reduce costs, then manufacturing cost decreases, but moisture exchange efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces through-openings that extend perpendicular to the flat surface plane of the flow plate, creating a three-dimensional flow path. This allows gas to access multiple membrane surfaces at different depths, effectively increasing the functional membrane area without increasing the planar footprint, thus resolving the contradiction between minimizing membrane area and maintaining moisture exchange efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
The flow plate is divided into multiple flow fields separated by flow plate partitions, with through-openings distributed across different segments. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each flow field while collectively maximizing moisture exchange across the membrane assembly, enabling cost reduction through minimized total membrane area while maintaining efficiency
2Device complexity
If conventional channel structures are used in flow plates, then device complexity is reduced, but moisture distribution homogeneity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The through-openings create vertical flow components perpendicular to the traditional planar flow paths. This three-dimensional flow pattern enhances mixing and distributes moisture more uniformly across the gas stream while maintaining relatively simple flow plate geometry, thus improving moisture distribution homogeneity without significantly increasing device complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The flow plate combines traditional planar flow fields with vertical through-openings into a single integrated structure. This merging of horizontal and vertical flow paths achieves homogeneous moisture distribution while avoiding the need for separate complex mixing devices, maintaining device simplicity
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design enhances the efficiency and compactness of humidifiers by maximizing water transfer rates and reducing production costs, improving the durability and efficiency of the humidification process.
Implementation Method 1
The water transfer membrane accounts for a significant proportion of the costs in the production of the described humidifier... the membranes are gas-impermeable, but allow the exchange of moisture between the water transfer membrane and the gas surrounding them
Data Source
AI summary
A flow plate for a humidifier, having flow fields on both mutually opposite flat sides of the flow plate is described. The flow plate proposed here has a multiplicity of through-openings, wherein the through-openings are designed such that a perpendicular projection of the through openings onto a plane oriented parallel to the plane of the flat surface of the flow plate has a non-vanishing area, so that gas passing through the through-openings effects, at least in part, mixing of a gas guided in the flow fields perpendicular to the plane of the flat surface of the flow plate. The through-openings improve the power of the humidifier, thus permitting a lower number of flow plates and therefore a more lightweight and more compact design.