Multi-physics simulations of fuel cells using multi-component modeling

Multi-physics simulations based on multi-component multi-solver modeling approach were performed for high-temperature fuel cells. The developed approach was primarily aimed at the design of complex multi-component engineering systems. It extends the libraries of earlier designed multi-physics system with component classes, which makes it particularly suitable for modeling of fuel cell systems. The C++ based class hierarchy enables simple implementations of different physical models based on general 3D PDE (partial differential equations) solvers, or simplified engineering 1D or 2D models. Simulations of solid-oxide fuel cells were performed using a combined transport solver in multi-species environment. The components included the PEN complex (anode, cathode, electrolyte), air/fuel channels, interconnects, seals and ambient environments. Species concentrations, mass, momentum, energy fluxes, and electric potentials were solved for different components. Models for unsteady fluid dynamics of species, heat transport, electrochemistry and electric currents were combined within different components and interfaced for common variables at the inter-component boundaries. The results include steady and unsteady distributions of temperature, species concentrations, mass fluxes and electric potential inside co-flow and cross-flow fuel cells with different number of channels.