Thermal and Hydrodynamic Modeling of Fully-Developed Convection in Anode-Supported Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

Uniform supply of volatile species to an active surface along with the oxidant flow to sustain the surface electrochemical reaction, and its effective cooling in an anode supported solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is modeled. Three-dimensional nonlinear partial differential governing equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, energy, species, and electrochemical kinetics for both the anode and cathode ducts for steady laminar, incompressible flow are solved computationally. A planar, tri-layer SOFC module, which consists of porous anode and cathode layers, solid electrolyte and rectangular flow ducts, is considered. The homogenous porous electrode layers are characterized by constant porosity, permeability, and thermal conductivity, and the fluid in these porous layers is considered to be in thermal equilibrium with the solid matrix. The computational results highlight the influence of fuel and oxidant flow duct aspect ratio and porous anode-layer depth on the friction factor and Nusselt number for typical electrochemical loads, and the consequent thermal signatures of the SOFC.