THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Yanzhe Li

,

Shixue Wang

,

Yunchi Fu

,

Yulong Zhao

,

Like Yue

EFFECT OF CORE FLOW HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT ON POWER GENERATION CHARACTERISTICS OF THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS WITH DIFFERENT PERFORMANCES

ABSTRACT
In this study, the effect of enhancing the core flow heat transfer with metal foam on the performance of thermoelectric generators with different power generation characteristics is studied experimentally. Filling the core flow area of the gas channel in a thermoelectric generator with metal foam can greatly improve the heat transfer capacity of the gas channel with a small pressure loss, thereby improving the power generation efficiency. The results show that, first, the heat transfer enhancement achieved by partially filling the core area of the gas channel with metal foam can significantly improve the performance of thermoelectric generators, the maximum output power is about 1.5 times higher than that of the unfilled channel. Second, for a thermoelectric generator with different modules, the friction coefficient for different filling ratios increases by about 16 times at most, while the Nu value increases by only three times at most, and according to the PEC of the gas channel, metal foam with high filling rate and low pore density is more suitable for the thermoelectric generator. Third, it is more appropriate to use the thermoelectric module with a high figure of merit as the selection criterion for deciding whether to adopt the technique of enhancing heat exchange through the gas channel. The maximum output power and efficiency of the thermoelectric generator using the high figure of merit module are 300% and 160% higher than those of the thermoelectric generator using the low figure of merit module, respectively.
KEYWORDS
thermoelectricity, heat-transfer enhancement, metal foam, thermoelectric module, core flow
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2021-03-09
PAPER REVISED: 2021-04-10
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2021-04-17
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2021-05-16
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI210309184L
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2022, VOLUME 26, ISSUE Issue 2, PAGES [1785 - 1797]
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Effect of core flow heat transfer enhancement on power generation characteristics of thermoelectric generators with different performances

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence