Instructions for running the 5kW SOFC stack dynamic model developed at
Montana State University
Prepared by: C. Wang and M.H. Nehrir
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717
Date prepared: 11/15/06
This is a brief instruction for running the 5 kW SOFC MATLAB/SIMULINK-based
model developed at the ECE Department at Montana State University.
The model is composed mainly of an electrochemical part and a thermal dynamic part.
It has 9 input quantities and two main outputs, as listed in the table below. The “Scope”
block in Simulink can be used to measure any quantities of interest. Scope blocks have
already been used in the model to measure the following quantities: Load current, FC
output power, FC output voltage, FC temperature, activation voltage drop, ohimc voltage
drop, concentration voltage drop, fuel utilization and effective partial pressure of H
2
, H
2
O
and O
2
.
Input quantities
I Fuel cell load current [A]. The maximum current is 160A.
Pa Pressure of the anode channel [atm]
MH2 Mole flow rate of H2 input at the anode [mol/s]
MH2O Mole flow rate of H2O input at the anode [mol/s]
Pc Pressure of the anode channel [atm]
Tairinlet The temperature of air at air inlet [
o
K]
Mair The mole flow rate of air input at the cathode [mol/s]
Tfuelinlet The temperature of fuel at fuel inlet [
o
K]
SteadyState A Boolean value, 0/1
1: There is no temperature dynamics. The fuel cell temperature
is set by Tairinlet. Tout will not change in this case. Set this
value to 1 for steady-state study only.
0: Thermal dynamics are included in the model.
Output quantities
Vout The output voltage of the SOFC model [V]
Tout The temperature of the SOFC model [
o
K]
Step-by-step procedure for running the model:
(1) Start MATLAB/ Simulink.
(2) Open the file (“SOFC_5kW_Model.mdl”) in MATLAB/Simulink. Set the proper
model input quantities.
(3) Choose the proper solver and set the simulation time. The solver has been pre-set in
the model (solver: “ode23tb”). For the two examples given below, the simulation
time has been set to 15800s. If you want to use a different solver or simulation time,
