Vanadium flow battery (VFB) is one of the preferred techniques for efficient large-scale energy storage applications. The key issue for its commercialization is cost reduction, which can be achieved by developing high power density VFB stacks. One of the effective strategies for developing high power density stacks is to enhance the mass transport by performing flow field design. Based on the maldistribution characteristics of concentration polarization inside a conventional rectangular flow battery (RFB), a novel trapezoid flow battery (TFB) was first proposed. Furthermore, a practical and general strategy, consisting of a stepping optimization method and an arithmetic progression model, has been developed for the TFB's structure optimization. By combining numerical simulation with charge-discharge test of the magnified stacks, it was verified that mass transport enhancement and performance improvement of the optimized TFB, with significant increments in voltage efficiency and electrolyte utilization, allowed it to possess great superiority over the RFB. (c) 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 782-795, 2018