Assessment of the Sealing Joints within SOFC Stacks by Numerical Simulation

The advantage of the numerical simulation of the mechanical behaviour of a complex system, like a fuel cell stack, is that the potential initiation of failure can be detected in an early stage of development. For most planar SOFC stacks the sealing joints are the components where the highest level of demand is made, so potential crack propagation in this region has to be investigated in order to reveal weaknesses. The sealing joints are subjected to high thermal loads, caused by the manufacturing process and the service conditions, which may lead to fracture in the vicinity of the interfaces of the interconnect and the layers of the cell. This is due to the different layer‐wise thermo‐mechanical behaviour of the individual materials.