Three-dimensional numerical study of the anode supported intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell overheating

Abstract

The purpose of the present work is to carry out an overheating study of planar solid oxide fuel cells at supported anode that operate at an intermediate temperature (AS-IT-SOFC) according to a three-dimensional and stationary numerical model. In this work, the heat is supposed produced according to four processes of heat generation (the Ohmic source that is due to the Joule effect, the source due to the species concentrations, the activation source that is caused by activation of different chemical reactions produced in the two electrodes, the electrochemical source due to the water formation in the anode). The results are obtained from a FORTRAN language program realized locally, which is based on the finite difference method in a three-dimensional environment. From the obtained results analysis, it became apparent that the developed model for the AS-IT-SOFC overheating study allowed us to understand the impact of each heat source on the temperature elevations and distributions in AS-IT-SOFC. The greatest heat production is that generated by the Ohmic source, it is about 80.6% for gas inlet temperatures of 883 K. The smallest heat production is that obtained by the source of concentration that is negligible compared to other sources. The heat produced by the electrochemical source is greater than that generated by the activation source, their heat productions are almost 17 and 2.3% for gas inlet temperatures of 883 K respectively.