It has been well recognized that cold start is one of the key issues of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) used as the engine of vehicles. Coolant circulation is usually launched synchronously with the fuel cell during cold start to avoid sudden large temperature variation, which greatly increases the cell thermal mass, lowers the heating rate, and worsens the cell performance. Considering the flow and heat transfer of coolant circulation, a three-dimensional, transient, multi-disciplinary model for cold start is built up. The numerical results agree reasonably well with experimental data, indicating that the model can be used for the investigation of PEMFC cold start processes. The analysis of circulation parameter effects shows that increasing the coolant flow rate or coolant tank capacity has little influence on the cell voltage, but will increase the non-uniformity of temperature distribution along flow direction. At lower start-up temperature, this non uniformity is more obvious. With higher coolant flow rate, although the distribution of current density becomes more evenly, the ice formation amount increases and its distribution and location are greatly affected. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.