Icon for: Micah Casteel

MICAH CASTEEL

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Years in Grad School: 4
Judges’ Queries and Presenter’s Replies
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Presentation Discussion
  • Icon for: Hainsworth Shin

    Hainsworth Shin

    Judge
    Faculty
    May 21, 2012 | 10:54 p.m.

    Nice poster and presentation. Congratulations on your work.

    Although the need to develop a screening approach is very important, shouldn’t screening approaches also be somewhat customizable to the materials under consideration? Where would such degree of flexibility originate in your design?

    Also, without a hypothesis or optimal design goal, how do you evaluate the utility of your screening approach?

  • Icon for: Micah Casteel

    Micah Casteel

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2012 | 08:54 a.m.

    Thanks for the comment, allow me to address the two questions separately:
    First, the screening is “somewhat flexible” in that depending on the overall system design parameters (operating temperature, fuel type, operational type etc) the individual test procedures can be adjusted. For instance, if the fuel cell system in question was to be operated at 600 C, the conductivity measurements, oxidation testing, etc would all be performed with that temperature as the benchmark temperature. I think the key takeaway from a comprehensive screening process is the desire and ability to investigate all (ideally) properties of the material. Often a new material is suggested and may perform very well in certain areas, but there seems to be a tendency to focus on a narrow and deep analysis of certain properties of the new materials which often results in missing major shortcomings in other areas. It is important to address the entire picture if a new material if it is to be more than an academic curiosity.
    Luckily for me the optimal design goals have mostly been established already. Governmental projects (SECA, REAL-SOFC, etc) publish design goals for various components. For instance the resistivity of an interconnect should not exceed 0.1 ohms/cm^2 over the lifetime of the stack. Other screened variables such as coefficient of thermal expansion will depend on the specifics of the individual system.

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