Numerical Simulation Of Heat And Mass Transfer In Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

According to the working principle of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and its structures, the theory of SOFC is analyzed based knowledge of several disciplines such as fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer, and electrochemistry. The cell theoretic potential is calculated by Nernst's equation and the open-circuit voltage is computed with considering the ohmic losses and the activation overpotential. The fuel cell performance is analyzed when some parameter (temperature, average current density, pressure, and/or fuel utility) changes.A three-dimensional mathematical model is developed to investigate the fluid flow, heat transfer, species transport in the solid oxide fuel cell. The model simultaneously accounts for electrochemical kinetics, fluid dynamics, and heat and mass transport. The computation domain consists of gas channels, anode, cathode, electrolyte and interconnecter. A set of transport equations is solved with the volume control finite discrete computation fluid dynamics (CFD). The steady-state and the transient model are computed with a commercial CFD package, FLUENT and its preprocessor Gambit. The numerical results show the behavior of the flow characteristics, distributions of temperature and the chemical components and their developing with time. The impact of different flow design upon the cell is discussed.