Experiments including electrical, mechanical and morphological aspects under compression in the range of 0–40% have been carried out on four potential materials for liquid diffusion layer (LDL) of vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) (including three widely used carbon felt and one recently utilized metal foam) in order to better understand the influence of the fundamental properties on the battery performance. We experimentally demonstrate that the electrical contact resistance is predominately determined by the clamping force. It is observed that increasing the stress applied on the carbon felt, which is of high interest for the durability of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA), has moreover a positive effect on their performance due to the reduced contact resistance. However, a simultaneously reduced porosity is also recorded and possibly detrimental to the mass transport of vanadium electrolyte. Moreover, the intrusion of carbon felts under compression is also characterized. Experimental results show that with the clamping force increases, both the porosity of the carbon felts underneath the rib and channel volume decrease, and this can be mainly attributed to the deformation of the carbon felts and resultant changed of the void volume as well as intrusion.