Flow distribution analyzing for the solid oxide fuel cell short stacks with rectangular and discrete cylindrical rib configurations

Abstract

The commercial software Ansys is utilized to simulate and compare the fuel and air flow distribution characteristics within the specific 10-cell solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks with different rib configurations, such as the rectangular, discrete symmetric cylindrical and staggered cylindrical rib configurations, respectively. The stack flow uniformity index and the standard flow deviation index are used to properly represent the flow distribution qualities among the piled cell units at stack level and among the rib channels within each cell unit, respectively. Part of the result shows that for a 10-cell short stack, the influences of different rib configurations on the flow uniformity at stack level are negligible, which further approves that a short modular stack as 10-cells is a proper choice in establishing the large power supplied SOFC system. A typical 10-cell modular SOFC using the rectangular rib configuration to establish the fuel rib channels and using the discrete symmetric cylindrical rib configuration to construct the air rib channels is concluded to be proper designing in achieving a good stack performance, while carefully considers the produced current collecting, flow distribution over the electrode surface and the reaction species transporting within the composite electrode.