ISSN Online: 2377-424X
ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-474-8
ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-473-1
International Heat Transfer Conference 16
INFLUENCE OF THOMSON EFFECT ON EFFICIENCY OF THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR
Abstrakt
The thermoelectric generators, which convert heat into electricity directly with simple structure, no moving parts, no pollution, and high reliability, have attracted renewed interest as concerns with the efficient use of waste heat. In a thermoelectric material, electron and hole diffusions are driven by temperature drops and its thermoelectric properties, such as the Seebeck coefficient, thermoelectric conductivity and electrical conductivity, are temperature-dependent. Therefore the Thomson effect cannot be neglect and even play very important role under certain conditions. In this work, a three-dimensional thermoelectric finite element model was established to examine the physical quantities when the thermoelectric generator operated in a design condition. The simulation results indicate that the effect of the Thomson effect plays very important role when the temperature difference is large between the cold and the hot ends, and/or the differential of thermoelectric parameters with the temperature is large. In fact, the TE conversion efficiency and the thermoelectric output power by that the maximum thermoelectric convert efficient with Thomson effect is smaller than that without Thomson effect by a magnitude of 10.6% when the temperature difference is 300K.