Research On The Automotive Exhaust-based Thermoelectric Generator With Noise Elimination Function

In order to alleviate the contradiction between energy supply and demand,thermoelectric technology,as a key technology which can transfer the heat energy produced by exhausted gas to the high-quality electricity,has attracted widely attention.The electric energy obtained by the conversion of the thermoelectric generator(TEG)can be used by the vehicle electric equipment,which can improve the fuel economy of the vehicle.Currently a typical automobile exhaust-based TEG is inserted into the exhaust system directly,which interferes the original chassis arrangement and has a poor compatibility with the engine exhaust system.Based on the results of our research group,an innovative structural integration of the TEG and the muffler is proposed.The heat exchanger,as a key component of TEG,is studied from the point of compatibility between sound and heat by the method of numerical simulation and experiment.Firstly,the characteristics of heat flow field of integrated waste heat channel,including surface temperature field,internal flow field and pressure drop,are analyzed by CFD Software.The acoustic performance of integrated waste heat channel is also studied by LMS Virtual.Lab Acoustic module.The results show that the integrated TEG modified from original muffler has an average surface temperature of 503.6K and its peak transmission loss can reach 26 dB,which indicates that the integrated heat channel has a good compatibility of thermal and acoustic performance.Secondly,further research about thermoelectric properties of the integrated TEG is made based on the bench test.The surface temperature field of integrated heat channel is obtained and has a good coherence with the simulation results,which verifies the reliability of numerical simulation.The mathematical model of thermoelectric generation module output power is established by Simulink and the thermal performance of the integrated thermoelectric power generation device is evaluated.Ultimately,based on Central Composite Design method and numerical simulation results,the factors that influence the performance of the integrated heat exchanger are studied in terms of surface average temperature,surface temperature uniformity and pressure drop.The method of MOGA is used to do multi-objective optimization to find the optimum combination of structural parameters,which provides ideas for the design and optimization of TEG with noise elimination function.