Abstract
In the waste heat utilization of automobile exhaust, the tubular thermoelectric generator (TTEG) has structural advantages compared with the flat-plate thermoelectric generator. A kind of TTEG that is composed of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 and Ni conical rings alternately attracts researchers' attention, and it generates electrical power based on the transverse thermoelectric effect. However, the electrical performance of such TTEG still needs to be improved for industrial utilization. In this study, the performance of TTEG was optimized through numerical simulation by changing its related structural parameters, including the tilt angle, the thickness of the conical ring, and the relative content of Ni. It is confirmed that the optimal tilt angle with maximum open-circuit voltage (OCV) is 27.3°; on this basis, it is found that a thinner thickness corresponds to a larger OCV; furthermore, when using a conical rings’ thickness of 0.75 mm and increasing the relative content of Ni in the Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3/Ni layered pair from 10% to 90%, the OCV decreases from 198mV to 105mV while the power density increases from 413W/m2 to 1350W/m2. It is believed that these findings can help to develop TTEGs with better electrical performance.
Highlights
Thermoelectric generators (TEG) are devices that convert thermal energy into electricity based on the Seebeck effect
The variation of the power density with different tilt angles is shown in Fig. 5b, unlike the voltage, the power density keeps increasing with the decrease of tilt angle
The maximum power density is around 1000 W/m2 when the tilt angle comes to 15°, and it will become higher as the tilt angle gets smaller
Summary
Thermoelectric generators (TEG) are devices that convert thermal energy into electricity based on the Seebeck effect. Kanno et al [4] from Panasonic corporation proposed a TTEG as a heat exchanger, which was composed of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 and Ni conical rings alternately, a tilting angle of each layer was formed by looking at the cross-section plane, the power density of this kind of TTEG was pretty low Later on, they optimized the manufacturing process, a method using a melt-spinning technique combined with the spark plasma sintering (SPS) process was applied, which reduced the resistivity and thermal conductivity of the material and increased the power density for a unit heat transfer surface area to 800 W/m2 and improved the thermoelectric characteristics [5].
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