Assembly of Fuel Cells and Stacks with Robots

Abstract

PEM-fuel cell stacks (PEM = Polymer-Electrolyte-Membrane) are still produced manually to a large extent. Therefore identical components have to be positioned precisely. Besides higher total costs, logistical and weight problems is also a result in a higher statistical sensitivity for failures due to assembly errors and the total of assembly tolerances. The aim of the project is to optimize the economic assembly of fuel cells in a significant way. Therefore the development of an automatic assembly process to join a membrane-electrode-arrangement with bipolar plates to a single cell stack in a leak-proof way is of essential importance. The single cells which have been produced and checked by a robot can be stored on work piece holders. These single cells are joined process-sure to bigger stacks also by an assembly robot. The benefits of this effective assembly by robots will be explained here.