Scrutiny of MT-SOFC Stack Manifolding Design Using CFD

Abstract

In this work we investigated the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in order to describe the behav- iour of a single Micro Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (MT-SOFC) and a bundle thereof. It is the first step before building a rather necessarily complicated experimental apparatus in order to compare the predictions with experimental measure- ment. The first goal of this study was to test the suitability of commercially available CFD & SOFC modelling software, with some modified features. The second goal was to predict the effects of various fuel and oxidant manifolding tech- niques regarding temperature, species and current density distributions. A result of this paper showed that CFD is a very useful tool, when a SOFC module is incorporated for MT-SOFC stack modelling. A second result showed that the oxidant flow regime was much more important than the fuel regime in order to manipulate a single MT-SOFC's temperature pro- file. The cases investigated had a radiation model included and the differences in temperature profiles, when radiation was included and neglected, especially for MT-SOFCs with view factors to the reactor housing, was shown to be important. The CFD predictions clearly showed the benefits and advantages associated with the different forms of fuel and oxidant manifoldings. A future experimental analysis is currently being designed.