An alternative standard thermal impedance-based approach for the dynamic modeling and characteristic analysis of the solid oxide fuel cell system

Abstract

Accurately capturing the dynamic interactions between the complex heterogeneous energies inside and outside a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is the key to improving energy efficiency and flexibility. This research proposes a standard thermal impedance approach to construct a novel cross-scale dynamic model for the SOFC system by considering the external thermal management subsystem and the internal coupled multi-physics processes of heat transfer, mass transfer, and electrochemical fields. The constructed model realizes the all-round cross-scale dynamic characteristics from internal process to external heat exchange by using characteristic parameters. On this basis, we simulate and validate the proposed model of the SOFC system using Matlab/Simulink platform. The results show that this approach’s feasibility and convenience provide about 67.6% improvement in computational efficiency compared to the verification model. Besides, the parameter sensitivity and dynamic response of the SOFC system is analyzed, including varying inlet temperature, load current, fuel flow rate and operating pressure. The proposed model can provide computational efficiency and high accuracy in analyzing the SOFC system behavior and enabling more precise control strategies.