Modeling the performance of a tubular solid oxide fuel cell

In this paper, we develop two computational models,for the electrical performance of the tubular solid oxide fuel cell designed by Siemens Westinghouse Corporation. The first model makes simplifying assumptions for activation and concentration polarizations and obtains an analytical solution. In the second procedure, we allow the polarizations to vary with the current density and solve the equations numerically. The results of the two methods are in good agreement with the experimentally quoted performance results. Thus, the relatively simple analytical procedure can be used to predict the performance of the cell as a function of cell dimensions.