The Coupled Thermodynamic-stress-electricity Performance Analysis Of Segmented Thermoelectric Generator

In the past thirty years, as people increasingly recognized the un-sustainability and pollution of traditional energy source, research on various new and clean energies developed quickly. Thermoelectric power generation technology takes advantage of the carriers and phonons transport coupled with the energy conversion process in the thermoelectric materials. Thermal energy can be converted into electrical power when a temperature difference exists between the hot and cold end of thermoelectric generator. Thermoelectric power generation technology is charactered as quiet operation, simple geometry, long lifecycle, no pollution, good adaptation, and low requirement for heat source. Owing to these characteristics, thermoelectric power generation technology has achieved wide applications in many areas, such as refrigeration, space exploration, the waste heat recovery of automobile, temperature measurement, and micro-scale power supplier.In the first part of this thesis, a mathematical model coupled with heat transfer and power generation will established on the base of an brief introduction of thermoelectric technology development, working principles and application prospect.In the following part, a numerical method is employed to carry out a careful coupled research on the heat transfer, voltage potential, and thermal stress in the single segmented thermoelectric generator. In the aspect of power generation, I examined the influence of the number of thermo-pins, the property change of TE material, the concentration rate, the ceramic plate thickness and tin soldering thickness on the performance of thermoelectric generator. According to the results, different design principles were introduced to increase the power generation efficiency of the model.In the part of thermal stress analysis, I mainly examined how the ceramic plate thickness, the distance between the thermo-pins, the copper conducting strip thickness,the tin soldering thickness and multi-layer design impose affects on the thermal stresslevel in the model. With regard to these problems, the corresponding design methods were apposed to reduce the stress level in the model. In the recent years, the demand on thermoelectric generators with high power generation efficiency working on high heat flux conditions, a mathematical method was developed to optimize the design of the segmented thermoelectric generator model. The numerical calculation was introduced to test the output characteristics of segmented thermoelectric model on uniform and non-uniform, steady and unsteady heat flux conditions. Specific advises were put forward to improving the power generation efficiency and reliability of thermoelectric generator. At the end of paper, I briefly introduced of the new findings of this paper. At the same time, the limitations of the thesiswere presented, such as not considering the thermal contact resistance and electric contact resistance in numerical simulation, a lack of dimensionless processing. Finally, the directions of the later work were demonstrated.Through theory study and numerical calculation, I gave some advises to develop the thermoelectric model. The thesis focused on the application of thermoelectric power generator. The working principles, derived the mathematical model, and apposed the design and optimized method were presented detailed. While increasing the power generation efficiency of the model, the newly-developed design is aimed at guaranteeing its reliability. For future thermoelectric module design, this thesis will be a good reference.