学术报告信息-材料物理系

By: bgs, PostTime: 2014/6/10, Visits: 34

报告时间；6月11日 上午 10: 00；

报告地点：理五栋二楼会议厅；

报告人：Professor Moses O. Tadé  

   （ Dean of Engineering and Co-Director, Centre for Process Systems Computations (CPSC). Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia ）

报告题目：Fuel Cells for Sustainable Energy Utilisation

报告摘要：

Energy is of paramount importance for the survival and prosperity of mankind on earth. One of the current topics gaining the focussed attention of research community is the sustainable use of available energy resources. Fuel cell technology is a deserving and worthy candidate for maximising the energy output of the available fossil fuel reserves. Fuel cells will form an important part in any future strategic vision on energy policy formulation. Although at present the technology for producing energy using fuel cells and other non-conventional sources exist, they are constrained by the high cost involved in their application. Therefore, these technologies are subjected to ongoing and continuous research to reduce their cost and bring them on par with conventional power sources. This will ensurethat the technologies can be widely adopted andconsequently will have an impact on the sustainable use of scarce resources. Our work at Curtin University mainly focuses on improving the life and reliability of the high temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) through model based optimisation and control. Load following ability and durability are the two main bottlenecks to commercialising SOFCs. Process monitoring and control has an important role in achieving better load following and durability. Thermal management of the cell via control of the thermal gradients in the cell has a direct impact on cell durability. A poor thermal management will best lead to poor performance and atworst cause fuel cell damage.Our current research focuses on interconnect design combined with new methods of non-linear estimation and control that have a significant influence on the thermal management of the fuel cells. Reduced-ordermodels are being developed which will be used in non-linear estimation and control strategy development for minimising the thermal gradients in the cell, in addition toother usual control objectives such as maintaining constant temperature and constant fuel utilisation. Recently we presented an adaptive non-linear observer for the estimation of temperature distribution in the planar SOFC. This observer design is based on a lumped parameter model of the SOFC and the stability of the proposed observer is proven using the Lyapunov function method and the concept of input to state stability for cascaded systems.The success of any model based controller and observer design depends largely on the accuracy of the model in representing the physical processes. The thermal management requires that the spatial temperature variations in the cell be captured. Therefore, a control affine reduced order model is being developed that captures the required phenomena to a reasonable accuracy. This presentation will discuss the above issues. It will identify the gaps and present potential solutions to fill these gaps. Some of the results from our work and the literature will be discussed as case studies to demonstrate how the challenges can be addressed.

Brief Biography of Professor Moses O. Tadé

Professor Moses Tadé received his Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering with first class honours from University of Ife (now ObafemiAwolowo University), Ile-Ife, Nigeria in 1980. He was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship to do his Masters and PhD in Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada from 1981 to 1986. He was recruited by The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia immediately after his PhD and he was at UQ from September 1986 to January 1989. He joined Curtin University of Technology as a Lecturer in January 1989. He was promoted to various academic levels and was awarded the Personal Chair of Process Systems Engineering in 1999. He became the Professor and Head of Chemical Engineering from 2001 to 2007 and after this he was promoted to Dean of Engineering in 2008.Professor Tadé was awarded a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University in 2012 for his significant contributions to Chemical Engineering research at the highest level in the field of Process Systems Engineering. He is a joint Director of the Centre for Process Systems Computations (CPSC). His research includes: biochemical engineering; process modelling and simulation; process optimisation and control; process systems engineering. Over the past many years, he has significantly contributed to bridging the gap between theoretical work and industrial practice of process control. Specific contributions have been made in developing robust control algorithms using nonlinear control theory and addressing important implementation issues to improve their performance. He has received substantial funding from both industry and the Australian Research Council (ARC) for his projects. He has successfully supervised over 30 PhD students, several Masters students and research fellows. He has published 4 books on various aspects of his work as well as over 200 research papers in refereed international journals and conference proceedings. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering (www.apjChemEng.com) and a Fellow of IChemE and Engineers Australia. He was listed in the Top 100 Australia’s most Influential Engineers in 2008 and he was the Chair of IChemE in Australia in 2012 and 2013 as well as a Vice-President of IChemECouncil. He is also the Deputy President of the Australian Council of Engineering Deans (ACED) from 2012 to 2014. He has recently being appointed to the ARC College of Experts from 2013 to 2016.