Three-dimensional comprehensive model of micro-scale transport in positive electrode/ electrolyte/negative electrode(PEN) and macro-scale transport in gas channel of anode supported SOFCs (solid oxide fuel cells) is developed in object-oriented CFD code Open Field Operation and Manipulation (OpenFOAM). The numerical procedure consists of calculations of complex phenomena which are fully coupled together with electrochemical reaction kinetics, mass balance, and energy balance, interacting between porous PEN structure and fluid gas channel. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was performed in flow channels with calculations of mass balance and continuum micro-scale model were used to predict the electrochemical characteristics in PEN. The distributions of current density and mass fraction are employed to suggest a dependency. To validate our numerical model, we compare the simulated results with experimental data at intermediate temperatures. This study provides detailed information of heat and mass transport phenomena with electro-chemical characteristics for intermediate temperature SOFCs.

References

[1] OpenFOAM^Ⓡ, 2016, User and Programmer’s Guide, OpenCFD Ltd., available from http://www.openfoam.com.