Abstract
A thermoelectric generator (TEG) device which uses solar energy as heat source would achieve higher efficiency if there is a higher temperature difference between the hot-cold ends. However, higher temperature or higher heat flux being imposed upon the hot end will cause strong thermal stress, which will have a negative influence on the life cycle of the thermoelectric module. Meanwhile, in order to get high heat flux, a Fresnel lens is required to concentrate solar energy, which will cause non-uniformity of heat flux on the hot end of the TEG and further influence the thermal stress of the device. This phenomenon is very common in solar TEG devices but seldom research work has been reported. In this paper, numerical analysis on the heat transfer and thermal stress performance of a TEG module has been performed considering the variation on the power of the heat flux being imposed upon the hot-end; the influence of non-uniform high heat flux on thermal stress has also been analyzed. It is found that non-uniformity of high heat flux being imposed upon the hot end has a significant effect on the thermal stress of TEG and life expectation of the device. Taking the uniformity of 100% as standard, when the heating uniformity is 70%, 50%, 30%, and 10%, respectively, the maximum thermal stress of TEG module increased by 3%, 6%, 12%, and 22% respectively. If we increase the heat flux on the hot end, the influence of non-uniformity on the thermal stress will be more remarkable.
Highlights
The need for renewable and environmentally friendly green energies to substitute for fossil fuels has gained a lot of attention all over the world, especially in China.The rapid development of the economy increased people’s income significantly, but was accompanied by a lot of serious pollution problems
The results indicated that pin geometry has an obvious effect on the modules, with various temperature differences applied on the two ends
From the research shown above, we found that increasing the hot-cold ends’ temperature difference is a good method for increasing the thermoelectric efficiency limited by Carnot efficiency if appropriate Thermoelectric generators (TEG) materials are selected
Summary
The need for renewable and environmentally friendly green energies to substitute for fossil fuels has gained a lot of attention all over the world, especially in China.The rapid development of the economy increased people’s income significantly, but was accompanied by a lot of serious pollution problems. Wang et al [31] investigated the performance of a TEG combined with an air-cooling system designed using two-stage optimization In this research, they used an analytical method to model the heat transfer of the heat sink and employed a numerical method with a finite element scheme to predict the performance of the thermoelectric generator. They used an analytical method to model the heat transfer of the heat sink and employed a numerical method with a finite element scheme to predict the performance of the thermoelectric generator They found that using the obtained compromise point, despite the fact that the heat sink efficiency is reduced by 20.93% compared to that without the optimal design, the system output power density is increased by 88.70%, which is recommended for the design of the heat sink. A numerical model is presented to examine the effect of the heating uniformity on the module’s stress level
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