Issues related to the modeling of solid oxide fuel cell stacks

This work involves a method for modeling the flow distribution in the stack of a solid oxide fuel cell. Towards this end, a three dimensional modeling of the flow through a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) stack was carried out using the CFD analysis. This paper examines the efficacy of using cold flow analysis to describe the flow through a SOFC stack. It brings out the relative importance of temperature effect and the mass transfer effect on the SOFC manifold design. Another feature of this study is to utilize statistical tools to ascertain the extent of uniform flow through a stack. The results showed that the cold flow analysis of flow through SOFC might not lead to correct manifold designs. The results of the numerical calculations also indicated that the mass transfer across membrane was essential to correctly describe the cathode flow, while only temperature effects were sufficient to describe the anode flow in a SOFC.