Modeling and Prediction of the Aging Process of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

This paper presents an approach to analyze the aging process of a solid oxide fuel cell. For this purpose, the current-voltage characteristic is employed as a suitable model to characterize the electrical behavior and the performance of fuel cells. Since this characteristic directly reflects the aging process, a parameter-dependent static ansatz is established that approximates the current-voltage characteristic. A thorough analysis is supported by a visualization of possible parametric changes and their impact on the electrical behavior. Using two exemplary data sets of an existing test rig, time-dependent variations of these parameters are identified to model the aging process properly. Thereby, a prediction becomes possible, which is shown exemplary for available test rig data. The authors want to emphasize that the proposed approach is applicable to other types of fuel cells and larger data sets with more measurement points over time.