Solid oxide fuel cells represent a potentially important application for ceramic materials. There are, however, some significant issues which can affect the reliability and durability of the cell. Mechanical failure owing to stress is one of the critical factors which can affect the stability and working life of the fuel cell stacks. These stresses generate in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) owing to mechanical forces and change in temperature during fabrication, assembly and operating conditions. There can be chances of cell delamination and micro-cracks in cell electrodes if these stresses are too high. The elastic properties and thermal expansion coefficient play a vital role to improve cell stability and performance. These properties depend on the types of materials and geometries of the composites. In this research, a numerical framework to predict the effective elastic properties and the effective thermal expansion coefficient for porous Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) electrode microstructures in a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell is presented. The electrodes of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells are discretized as porous microstructures that are formed by randomly distributed and overlapping spheres with particle size distributions that match those of actual ceramic powder. Three-dimensional (3D) microstructures of YSZ-pore are formed with a porosity ranging from 25% to 40%. The technique involves the construction of the YSZ-pores microstructures based on measurable starting parameters and subsequent numerical prediction of effective elastic properties and effective thermal expansion coefficient. Three domain sizes are considered for the generation of YSZ-pore microstructures. The method of prediction of effective Young’s modulus (Eeff), effective Poisson’s ratio , effective bulk modulus effective shear modulus , and effective thermal expansion coefficients for various porosities (P) of Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) electrode material in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells is based on the Finite Volume analysis which in turn is based on the solution of the linear elastic stress analysis problem. The predicted results are compared with some theoretical correlations of two-phase composites for effective elastic properties and effective thermal expansion coefficient. It has been found that predicted results are falling inside of the upper and lower bounds. / Thesis (Master, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2013-10-01 17:01:05.068

Les matériaux cellulaires poreux de type mousse présentent un grand intérêt pour de nombreuses applications. Leurs propriétés thermiques, mécaniques, acoustiques dépendent fortement de leur microstructure complexe. Afin de mieux comprendre la relation microstructure/propriétés mécaniques de ces matériaux, une modélisation micromécanique basée sur une méthode d’homogénéisation périodique et le lemme de Hill est proposée pour prédire les propriétés élastiques effectives de ces matériaux. Une approche basée sur le diagramme de Voronoï est utilisée pour générer des structures de mousse périodiques réalistes plus ou moins irrégulières, couvrant une large gamme de matériaux . Différents types de mousses à forte porosité sont générés, non seulement des matériaux cellulaires à pores ouverts mais aussi des matériaux cellulaires à pores fermés. Des comparaisons avec des résultats issus de tomographie X d’architectures réelles 3D de mousses valident ces approches de Voronoï. Les simulations numériques permettent d’étudier l’influence des paramètres morphologiques des mousses sur les propriétés élastiques effectives. De nouvelles lois analytiques génériques de propriétés effectives sont déduites pour des mousses à cellules ouvertes de type Kelvin. Une attention particulière est portée sur la détermination de l’élément de volume représentatif (VER). Des méthodes statistiques spécifiques sont proposées pour déterminer le VER approprié aux modèles de mousse. Dans le cas des mousses polymères isolantes à cellules fermées irrégulières anisotropes, la confrontation avec des résultats d’essais mécaniques confirme la validité des modèles développés. / Thanks to the excellent combination of physical, mechanical and thermal properties, foam materials bring new possibilities to extend the range of the properties for engineering, which is limited by fully dense solids. In this study, a micromechanical modeling based on Hill's lemma (Hill's lemma periodic computational homogenization approach) is proposed for predicting the effective elastic properties of foam materials. An approach based on Voronoi diagram is used to generate realistic periodic foam structures, including regular and irregular open-cell structures, and irregular closed-cell structures. First, the influences of morphological parameters of open-cell foams on the effective elastic properties are studied. The generated structures allow representing the details of the microstructure and cover a large range of foam materials for engineering purposes. With the assessments, new generic analytical laws are proposed for Kelvin open-cell foams by considering their morphological parameters. Second, the tomography images are analysed to obtain the morphological description of the real irregular open-cell structure. With these morphological parameters, numerous numerical realistic structures are generated. Specific statistic methods are proposed to determine the Representative Volume Element (RVE) for foam models. Third, the anisotropic irregular closed-cell foam is studied. The numerical structures are generated with the morphological description of the reconstructed tomography structure and the effective elastic properties of the closed-cell foam models are estimated. The numerical results show the satisfying agreement with the experimental results.