Study on effect of flow channel obstacles on temperature gradient of SOFC
The excessively high temperature gradient inside solid oxide fuel cell(SOFC)can lead to failure of the cell,so it is critical to reduce the temperature gradient in the SOFC and enhance the uniformity of the cell temperature.By combining with the electrical,thermal,flow,and mass transfer physical fields,a multi-physics field coupling model of the SOFC is established.The accuracy of the model is verified by comparing with the experimental data.The SOFC temperature and temperature gradient distributions are investigated by the SOFC model and the maximum temperature gradient in the cell reaction zone is determined as the optimization objective.The obstacle structure in flow channel is designed,and the effectiveness is proved.The shape,height and width of the obstacle structure are discussed and analyzed.It is found that the obstacle affects the maximum temperature gradient in the reaction zone mainly by changing the fluid flow rate and the oxygen molar concentration in the reaction layer.The change of the obstacle for the pressure drop in the flow path mainly affects the power density loss.Finally,the circular obstacle(h=0.8 mm,d1=4.0 mm)is identified as the optimal structure.With the same net power density as the conventional channel,the maximum temperature gradient is 43.35 K/cm,which is 9.4%lower than that of the conventional channel.
solid oxide fuel cellmultiphysics field coupling simulationtemperature gradientstructure of the obstacle