Research On The Thermoelectric Generation Technology Utilizing The Waste Heat Of Automobile Intercooler

At present,with the increasing severe situation of strained resources and environmental pollution,under the premise of the green environmental protection,how to use of energy more efficiently is becoming a hot spot.With the development of the automobile industry in our country,its sales has increased rapidly,and the high energy consumption of automobile has aroused people’s great concern.Many domestic and foreign scholars have studied the thermoelectric generation technology of automobile waste heat,mainly using the waste heat of automobile exhaust,while other heat resources of automobile have not been effectively used.The automobile intercooler releases a lot of heat in cooling high-temperature gas which comes from turbocharger.The without recycling heat not only affects heat release but also wastes energy.The automobile intercooler is suit of the thermoelectric generator installation conditions,whose heat source temperature is stable and high practical value.Therefore,it is necessary to study the thermoelectric generation technology utilizing the waste heat of the automobile intercooler.The intercooler thermoelectric generator is a power source device which converts the gas waste heat of the intercooler into electrical energy through the thermoelectric effect.It also reduces the gas temperature of the intercooler and makes the intake quantity of the engine more fully and the combustion more thoroughly,so as to achieve the purpose of energy-efficient cars.This paper focuses on the thermoelectric generation technology utilizing waste heat of the automobile intercooler.Related work is as follows:1.The model of thermal analysis of the automobile intercooler is established.The surface temperature distribution data of the intercooler is obtained by simulation,which provides the heat source data for the design of the thermoelectric generator.2.The performance of thermocouple for the intercooler is simulated.Based on the thermoelectric principle,the effects of various factors on the output power and the thermal efficiency of the thermoelectric generator and its influencing mechanism are analyzed.Simulation model is established by using the finite element method,based on whether the contact effect and thermal stress are considered,the factors,that affect the performance of the thermocouple,are simulated by the finite element method,such as PN junction’s bottom side and arm height,fin height,heat source temperature etc.The relationship between the output characteristic and the structural parameters is obtained.The results show that the new thermocouple structure of thermoelectricity is also obtained,which achieves an excellent output power and thermoelectric conversion efficiency in the surface temperature range of the intercooler.The designed thermocouple structure has high reliability and stability,too.3.Experiments are conducted to validate the results.The performance test platform of the thermoelectric generation module is set up.The parameters of Bi₂Te₃-base thermoelectric materials are tested.The output performance of the thermoelectric generation module is tested.And the comparison between the experimental data and the simulation results verifies the rationality of the simulation parameters selection and model design.