Model building of thermoelectric generator exposed to dynamic transient sources

Abstract

This paper presents the modeling of thermal and power generation behavior of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) exposed to transient sources. Most of the previous research concerned the analysis for steady-state behavior which only involves constant temperature value. However, in practice, the temperature of the TEG input fluctuates with time. Therefore this research will look into a focal point on transient heat sources that is being supplied to the hot junction with natural convection cooling process at the cold junction for single and multiple configuration of TEG. The model obtained the data from existing experiments with predicted various conditions of temperature, heat gradient, internal resistance and current attribute of TEG. Transient analysis on single TEG has shown that the value of Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity and figure-of-merit vary with the value of cold side temperature. When the ratio between the load and the internal resistance increases, the voltage increases. By considering the multiple TEGs, the matched voltage shows different values when the number of cascaded TEGs is varied. The simulation results have proven that the variation in the number of cascaded TEGs can be used to determine the output power characteristics of a TEG.