Thermal contact resistance in solid oxide fuel cell stacks

• Modelling thermal contact situations in SOFC stacks.
• Steady-state heat transfer measurement through stack repeating unit.
• Determination of thermal contact conductance at stack internal interfaces.
• Including contact resistances for glass and mica stack sealings.

For detailed thermal modelling of SOFC stacks, in particular research of improved thermal management, start-up and shut-down processes, thermal contact resistances (TCR) are required input parameters. These parameters are difficult to access analytically and strongly depend on temperature, geometry and material properties of the contact. Therefore, this work presents an experimental study of thermal contact resistance between different components of one SOFC stack repeating unit at varying temperatures up to typical operating temperatures (800 °C). Heat transfer rates are obtained for full repeating units, cell only, contact mesh only and sealing set-ups. Thermal interface resistances between interconnector and Ni-mesh, Ni-mesh and anode, cathode and interconnector as well as between interconnector and sealing are computed based on the measured data and provide information for numerical SOFC stack modelling.