Sensitivity analysis of performance and thermal impacts of a single hydrogen fueled solid oxide fuel cell to optimize the operational and design parameters

Abstract

In this research, the sensitivity analysis has been performed to investigate the effects of various parameters such as operating temperature, material porosity, flow configurations, air–fuel ratios, and electrolyte thickness on the performance and thermal impacts (stress and strain) generation in the porous electrodes and solid electrolyte. The already developed cell temperature base model of hydrogen-fueled solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is used to optimize the operational and design parameters in this study. It is recognized that operating temperature has a noticeable effect on current density and thermal impacts generation. The maximum thermal stress indicated in the middle of the solid electrolyte along the length of the cell for operating temperatures 800–1000 ◦C are 2088.88 MPa and 2618.18 MPa, meanwhile, the current density varies from 2556.04 A/m2 to 3366.51 A/m2. Taguchi Orthogonal Array Method has been implemented to perform the sensitivity analysis. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that operating temperature has a 51.10% contribution to the overall performance of the cell followed by porosity 23.61 %, electrolyte thickness 16.45%, air–fuel ratio 6.41%, and flow configuration 2.41%.