Reliability of Materials and Components for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Sponsor DOE Office of Fossil Energy

DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory
Sponsor Contact Wayne Surdoval
Organization Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Contact Edgar Lara-Curzio

The purpose of this project is to identify the mechanisms that are responsible for the failure of solid oxide fuel cell components, in particular multilayer anode/electrolyte/cathode assemblies which constitute the building blocks of these systems.
It is also a purpose of this project to develop and implement a probabilistic design methodology for predicting the life of solid oxide fuel cells.

Fixture for determination of KIC and slow crack growth by double torsion testing

Infrared image of multilayered zirconia electrolyte sample (a) before and (b) after biaxial testing. Arrow in (a) points at region of delamination.