Parametric sensitivity analysis to investigate the effects of operating and design parameters on single direct methane steam reforming solid oxide fuel cell performance and thermal impacts generation

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with high operational temperature provide direct methane steam reforming (MSR) but at the same time results in high thermal impacts (thermal stresses and strains) generation. In the present work, parametric and sensitivity analysis have been presented to understand the effects of different operational (operating temperature, air–fuel ratio) and geometrical parameters (porosity, flow configurations and electrolyte thickness) on cell performance and thermal impacts generation in porous electrodes and solid electrolyte. Simulation results show that 25 % increase in operating temperature (800° to 1000 °C) causes an increase of 85.85 % in current density (2146.37 A/m2 to 3989.06 A/m2) and 10.5 % larger thermal stress generation (1673.18 MPa to 1849.69 MPa). The sensitivity analysis has been performed by implementing Taguchi Method. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicates that operating temperature substantially affects the overall cell performance with a significant contribution of 61.81 %, followed by electrolyte thickness 22.42 %, material porosity 13.90 %, air–fuel ratio 0.56 %, and flow configuration 0.40 %, respectively.