Influence of geometric parameter and contact resistances on the thermal-electric behavior of a segmented TEG

Abstract

Thermoelectric (TE) generation technology plays an increasingly significant role in a global environment. A desirable approach to improve the efficiency of thermoelectric generator (TEG) is to segment the n- and/or p-leg into several parts with different materials for increasing the average thermoelectric figure of merit of the legs, and to operate with a relatively larger temperature gradient. In this study, a three-dimensional model is developed for the performance analysis of a segmented TEG, and the geometric design optimization of the TEG is examined numerically with the use of the temperature-dependent thermoelectric materials. Specifically, the temperature, heat flow, electric potential, electric current and Joule heating in the thermoelectric modules are investigated in detail. Also, the efficiency and effectiveness of the TEG is analyzed with the design variables such as the ratio of cross-sectional area of p-leg and n-leg, the length ratio of different materials in the segmented leg, and the geometry configurations of p- and n-legs. Furthermore, the effect of the contact resistance on the TEG performance is considered. The results show that a proper design of the geometric parameters can lead to an optimal design of thermoelectric generation systems with higher efficiency.