A mechanistic-based healing model for self-healing glass seals used in solid oxide fuel cells

The use of self-healing glass as hermetic seals is a recent advancement in sealing technology development for the planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Because of its capability to restore mechanical properties at elevated temperatures, the self-healing glass seal is expected to provide high reliability in maintaining the long-term structural integrity and functionality of SOFCs. To accommodate the design and evaluate the effectiveness of these engineered seals under various thermomechanical operating conditions, a computational modeling framework must be developed to accurately capture and predict the healing behavior of the glass material. In the present work, a mechanistic-based, two-stage model was developed to study the stress and temperature-dependent crack healing of the self-healing glass materials. The model initially was first calibrated by experimental measurements combined with kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulation results and then implemented into finite element analysis (FEA). The effects of various factors, e.g., stress, temperature, and crack morphology, on the healing behavior of the glass were investigated and discussed.