Thermal stress analysis for a SOFC testing cell

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is operated at elevated temperatures of 650-1000 degrees C. Under such high temperatures, several issues need to be overcome. Among then, the thermal stresses because of the mismatch of thermal expansion coefficients of components is one of the most important issue. The typical materials used for anode, electrolyte, and cathode in SOFC are all ceramic materials which are brittle and prone to fail due to excessive stresses. In this paper, a prototype SOFC single test cell, which consists of PEN, gas distributors and Air/Fuel pipings, is constructed. To analyze the thermal stress distribution of the test cell, the commercial code MARC is employed to carry out stress/thermal analysis. In the calculations, temperature field is provided by CFD code, STAR-CD and electrochemical module ES-SOFC. The analysis results will be offered to improve the cell/stack design.