Computational study of heat and mass transfer issues in solid oxide fuel cells

Temperature uniformity contributes to minimizing material stress and improving lifetime in SOFCs. This paper investigates the temperature distribution in three flow field configurations: co-flow, counter-flow and cross-flow. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model coupling transport and electrochemistry is developed within the framework of an existing open source library. Porous electrodes with effective diffusivities and interconnect rib geometries are accounted for. Tow different approaches were investigated in obtaining effective diffusion coefficients for the porous transport layers. A lumped internal resistance model is implemented for the calculation of electrochemical reaction and Joule heating. The temperature profiles are influenced by the air flow passage and the interconnect rib geometry. For the three geometries considered, the counter-flow case produces the most uniform temperature distribution. It is shown that the presccription for the diffusion coefficients isa matter of importance, as it significantly affects the entire solution.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye