Stress analysis of solid oxide fuel cell anode microstructure reconstructed from focused ion beam tomography

In this paper we present work that combines microstructural characterisation of a porous solid oxide fuel cell anode with three dimensional stress analysis to inspect the stresses within the individual phases of the anode, and at phase boundaries. The electrode microstructure has been characterised using focused ion beam (FIB) tomography and the resulting microstructure used to generate a solid mesh of three dimensional tetrahedral elements. A temperature field was applied to simulate the heating of the sample from room temperature (298 K) to operating temperature (1073 K). The maximum principal stress in the nickel phase was found to exceed the yield strength, while the minimum principal stress in the yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) phase was found to exceed the characteristic strength of that volume of YSZ, indicating that the probability of failure of the YSZ matrix is significant.