Volume 9: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part I

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT MODELS OF THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS AND OPTIMIZATION OF THEIR GEOMETRIC STRUCTURES Wei He, Guangsen Yao, Zihan Cai, Jifang Zhang, Ying Shi, Kai Zhu

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical model of a thermoelectric module (TEM) is constructed using COMSOL simulation software basing on HZ-type thermoelectric material. First, the different models are compared with considering variable physical property and equal internal resistance or not. Then, the geometric structure on P(N) leg of TEM is optimized by taking the power density as the optimal objective. The results show that the optimal geometric size combination of p-n legs is lopt = 6.9 mm and hopt = 0.8 mm. The peak power density with optimal structure can increase by 75% compared to Hz products.

Keywords thermoelectric generator, model, geometric size