A dynamic 1D model of a solid oxide fuel cell for real time simulation

A 1D dynamic solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) model has been developed for real time applications. The model accounts for all transport and polarization phenomena by developing a system of governing differential equations over 1D control volumes. The 1D model is an improvement over existing 0D real time models in that it can more accurately predict the temperature and pressure variations along the cell while maintaining real time capabilities with regards to computational time. Several simplifications are required to maintain real time capabilities while improving the fidelity of the model. It was found that a 1D model with 21 nodes performs each time dependent computation in 3.8 ms. Results show that activation overpotentials account for most of the total cell overpotential, and that temperature variations across this particular cell exceed 100 K. Depending on the gas channel configuration, the pumping power required to supply air and fuel to the cell can be in the same order of magnitude as the power produced by the fuel cell. It is shown that the use of fewer channels with larger cross-sectional areas, reduces the pressure drop due to wall friction, and hence reduces the required pumping power.