Effect of Thermal Load on Mechanical Properties of Ni/YSZ Anode Support Micro Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

The most commonly used Micro tubular solid oxide fuel cell (MT-SOFC) anode material is a two phase nickel and yttria stabilized zirconia (Ni/YSZ) cermet. And the mechanical stability of anode support layer, in anode-supported electrolyte designs, is very important for large scale applications. During the assembly of stack and normal operation, MT-SOFC is easy to crack under the fuel pressure and thermal loading due to various mechanical properties. In this study, MT-SOFC model was founded on the background of MT-SOFC stack of electric vehicle and was analyzed by finite element method, based on theories of elasto-plasticity, thermo-mechanical coupling. The effect of thermal load was investigated. It concluded that the failure of the micro-tubular cell occurs mainly because of the residual stress due to the mismatch between the coefficients of thermal expansion of the materials of the electrode assembly. The results are important for studying the life and final spallation of MT-SOFC of electric vehicle.