Dynamic Modeling and Temperature Distribution of a Planar SOFC with a Cross-flow Direction

SOFC has become a competitive power source according to its advantages such as high efficiency, flexibility in the used fuel, low emission, and quit operation. As the stack is the core component of SOFC power generation system, it is very significant to reveal the mechanism of temperature distribution in the SOFC stack. In this paper, a 2D differential model for a cross-flow planar SOFC is built using finite volume method in order to obtain the temperature distribution within the stack. To ensure the correctness, the model is validated with experimental data collected from an experiment carried out in our lab using an external gas manifold. Results show that the temperature increases along the air flow direction and decreases with the fuel flow direction, and the reasons were explained reasonably. Effects of the input voltage, air flow rate, and fuel flow rate on current and temperature distributions were also studied. Therefore, the work in this paper is a good background for a stack temperature controller design and optimization of fabricating a planar cross flow SOFC stack.