Integrating Multi-physicochemical Processes Induced Stresses to Study Structural Reliability for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Modeling and Experiments

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The research objective of this project is to elucidate the mechanisms that are responsible for delamination degradations of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The SOFC is an environmentally benign energy technology with high efficiencies. Long-term stability is an important requirement for the commercial applications of such a technology. While the delamination phenomena have been widely attributed to the thermal stress mismatch between different layers of SOFCs, the hypothesis proposed in this project is that the lattice parameter variations induced by oxygen ion transport across the interface could play an important role in delamination degradations. The results of both experiment and modeling have provided preliminary evidence supporting this hypothesis. The research to be performed includes the basic parameter characterizations related to oxygen ion transport process, systematic experiments to study multi-process induced stresses, and new modeling approach to quantify the individual roles of multi-processes influencing structural reliability under comprehensive multi-physicochemical conditions, as well as delamination mitigation strategy studies. The deliverables include a catalog of basic mechanisms, modeling and analysis tools, experimental methods, and attainable strategies for delamination mitigations, documentation of research results, as well as engineering student and pre-college student educations.If successful, the results of this research will bring a new paradigm for structural reliability studies of SOFCs and have significant impacts on a series of SOFC related issues, including material synthesis and selections, design and fabrication, operating condition determination to mitigate structural failures. The research will help transfer SOFC technology to US industry. The results will be disseminated to allow for a wide variety of applications in other oxygen ion conducting solid state devices. Graduate and undergraduate engineering students will benefit through classroom instruction and involvement in the research. Outreach to high school students and the general public will promote the awareness and interest of the clean energy technologies.