The Role of Radiative Heat Transfer With Participating Gases on the Temperature Distribution in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. J. VanderSteen ◽  
J. G. Pharoah
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Temperature Distribution ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Radiative Heat Transfer ◽  
Radiative Heat ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Oxide Fuel ◽  
Participating Media

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology has been shown to be viable, but its profitability has not yet been seen. To achieve a high net efficiency at a low net cost, a detailed understanding of the transport processes both inside and outside of the SOFC stack is required. Of particular significance is an accurate determination of the temperature distribution because material properties, chemical kinetics and transport properties depend heavily on the temperature. Effective utilization of the heat can lead to a substantial increase in overall system efficiency and decrease in operating cost. Despite the extreme importance in accurately predicting temperature, the majority of SOFC modeling work ignores radiative heat transfer. SOFCs operate at temperatures around or above 1200 K, where radiation effects can be significant. In order to correctly predict the radiation heat transfer, participating gases must also be included. Water vapour and carbon dioxide can absorb, emit, and scatter radiation, and are present at the anode in high concentrations. This paper presents a thermal transport model for analyzing heat transfer and improving thermal management within planar SOFCs. The model was implemented using a commercial computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code and includes conduction, convection, and radiation in a participating media. It is clear from this study that radiation must be considered when modelling solid oxide fuel cells. The effect of participating media radiation was shown to be minimal in this geometry, but it is likely to be more important in tubular geometries.

Spectral Radiative Heat Transfer Analysis of the Planar SOFC

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Damm ◽  
Andrei G. Fedorov
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Radiative Heat Transfer ◽  
Radiative Heat ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Radiative Properties ◽  
Radiative Heat Flux ◽  
Oxide Fuel

Thermo-mechanical failure of components in planar-type solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) depends strongly on the local temperature gradients at the interfaces of different materials. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to accurately predict the temperature fields within the stack, especially near the interfaces. Because of elevated operating temperatures (of the order of 1000 K or even higher), radiation heat transfer could become a dominant mode of heat transfer in the SOFCs. In this study, we extend our recent work on radiative effects in solid oxide fuel cells (Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 124, No. 2, pp. 453–458) by accounting for the spectral dependence of the radiative properties of the electrolyte material. The measurements of spectral radiative properties of the polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte we performed indicate that an optically thin approximation can be used for treatment of radiative heat transfer. To this end, the Schuster-Schwartzchild two-flux approximation is used to solve the radiative transfer equation (RTE) for the spectral radiative heat flux, which is then integrated over the entire spectrum using an N-band approximation to obtain the total heat flux due to thermal radiation. The divergence of the total radiative heat flux is then incorporated as a heat sink into a 3-D thermo-fluid model of a SOFC through the user-defined function utility in the commercial FLUENT CFD software. The results of sample calculations are reported and compared against the baseline cases when no radiation effects are included and when the spectrally gray approximation is used for treatment of radiative heat transfer.

Spectral Radiative Heat Transfer Analysis of the Planar SOFC

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 258-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Damm ◽  
Andrei G. Fedorov
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Radiative Heat Transfer ◽  
Radiative Heat ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Radiative Properties ◽  
Radiative Heat Flux ◽  
Oxide Fuel

Thermo-mechanical failure of components in planar-type solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) depends strongly on the local temperature gradients at the interfaces of different materials. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to accurately predict the temperature fields within the stack, especially near the interfaces. Because of elevated operating temperatures (of the order of 1000K or even higher), radiation heat transfer could become a dominant mode of heat transfer in the SOFCs. In this study, we extend our recent work on radiative effects in solid oxide fuel cells [J. Power Sources, 124, No. 2, pp. 453–458] by accounting for the spectral dependence of the radiative properties of the electrolyte material. The measurements of spectral radiative properties of the polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia electrolyte we performed indicate that an optically thin approximation can be used for treatment of radiative heat transfer. To this end, the Schuster–Schwartzchild two-flux approximation is used to solve the radiative transfer equation for the spectral radiative heat flux, which is then integrated over the entire spectrum using an N-band approximation to obtain the total heat flux due to thermal radiation. The divergence of the total radiative heat flux is then incorporated as a heat sink into a three-dimensional thermo-fluid model of a SOFC through the user-defined function utility in the commercial FLUENT computational fluid dynamics software. The results of sample calculations are reported and compared against the base line cases when no radiation effects are included and when the spectrally gray approximation is used for treatment of radiative heat transfer.

Modeling Radiation Heat Transfer With Participating Media in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. J. VanderSteen ◽  
J. G. Pharoah
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Radiation Heat Transfer ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Oxide Fuel ◽  
Radiation Heat ◽  
Participating Media

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology has been shown to be viable, but its profitability has not yet been seen. To achieve a high net efficiency at a low net cost, a detailed understanding of the transport processes both inside and outside of the SOFC stack is required. Of particular significance is an accurate determination of the temperature distribution because material properties, chemical kinetics, and transport properties depend heavily on the temperature. Effective utilization of the heat can lead to a substantial increase in overall system efficiency and decrease in operating cost. Despite the extreme importance in accurately predicting temperature, the SOFC modeling community appears to be uncertain about the importance of incorporating radiation into their models. Although some models have included it, the majority of models ignore radiative heat transfer. SOFCs operate at temperatures around or above 1200 K, where radiation effects can be significant. In order to correctly predict the radiation heat transfer, participating gases must also be included. Water vapor and carbon dioxide can absorb, emit, and scatter radiation, and are present at the anode in high concentrations. This paper presents a simple thermal transport model for analyzing heat transfer and improving thermal management within planar SOFCs. The model was implemented using a commercial computational fluid dynamic code and includes conduction, convection, and radiation in a participating media. It is clear from this study that radiation must be considered when modeling solid oxide fuel cells. The effect of participating media radiation was shown to be minimal in this geometry, but it is likely to be more important in tubular geometries.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document