Abstract
The quantitative analysis and interpretation of button-cell experiments usually depends upon assuming isothermal conditions together with uniform and known gas composition within the gas compartments. An objective of the present effort is to develop computational tools to study the validity of such assumptions. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is developed and applied to a particular SOFC button cell, characterizing the fluid flow, chemistry, and thermal transport. Results show that when inlet flow rates are sufficiently high, button-cell data can be interpreted using the commonly used assumptions. However, when flow rates are not sufficient, the assumptions of uniform composition can be significantly violated. Additionally, depending on operating conditions there can be significant temperature variations within the gas compartments and the membrane-electrode assembly.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 123-135 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Journal of Power Sources |
Volume | 187 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2009 |
Funding
This work at the Colorado School of Mines and Ansys/Fluent was supported by the Office of Naval Research through a Research Tools Consortium grant number N00014-05-1-0339. The effort at Northwestern University was supported by the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory under Award Number DE-FC26-05NT42625. We gratefully acknowledge the collaboration with Prof. David Goodwin (Caltech) for his assistance in integrating C antera into these simulations.
Keywords
- Button cell
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Modeling
- SOFC
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering