Abstract
KEY WORD: exhaust gas, thermoelectric generation, CFD simulation, optimal fin forms, bench tests
ABSTRACT: Using exhaust gas of vehicle engine as heat source and cool water as coolant, thermoelectric generator (TEG) transforms heat energy into electricity. Through building a three-dimension CFD model combining experiment data by ANSYS Fluent, and changing fin structure parameters , the TEG device flow and temperature field was analyzed to improve mean temperature and the uniformity of temperature distribution. Then two relative optimal fin forms were determined. Based on one of two relative optimal fin forms and through bench tests, the simulation results were verified. Test results show that: the hot-end mean surface temperature is close to the simulation calculation, with different about 7.1%; TEG device hot-end surface mean temperature, mean temperature difference between hot-end and cold-end, and electric output power are improved under different working conditions.