Performance analysis of AS-SOFC fuel cell combining single and sinusoidal flow field: numerical study

Abstract

The performance of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) was examined using 3D computational fluid dynamics to model mass and heat flows inside the channels. In the present investigation, a SOFC fuel cell with a new flow field based on a sinusoidal flow has been studied. The latter was tested and compared with a single flow using ANSYS FLUENT. The obtained results showed that at a given operating voltage, the maximum power for the sinusoidal and the single flow fields were 1.43 and 1.35 W/cm2, respectively. By taking in addition, into account the concentration, activation and Ohmic losses; it was noticed that the distribution of velocity and temperature for the sinusoidal flow led to bettered results. Furthermore, it was observed that the maximum use of H2 mass fraction consumed in sinusoidal and single flow field designs were 60% and 55% respectively. Similarly, the highest H2O mass fraction values produced for the sinusoidal and single flow designs were 42% and 34% respectively. This model was validated and confronted to previous data. The present results agree well with reported studies in literature.