Reliable Thermoelectric Module Design under Opposing Requirements from Structural and Thermoelectric Considerations

Structural reliability of thermoelectric generation (TEG) systems still remains an issue especially for applications such as large scale industrial or automobile exhaust heat recovery where a TEG system is subject to dynamic loads and thermal cycling. Traditional thermoelectric (TE) system design and optimization techniques, focused on performance alone, could result in designs that may fail during operation as the geometric requirements for optimal performance (especially the power) are often in conflict with the requirements for mechanical reliability. This study focused on reducing the thermomechanical stresses in a TEG system without compromising the optimized system performance. Finite element simulations were carried out to study the effect of TE element (leg) geometry such as the leg length and cross-sectional shape under constrained material volume requirements. Results indicated that the element length has a major influence on the element stresses whereas the regular cross-sectional shapes have minor influence. Additionally, the impact of TE element stresses on the mechanical reliability is evaluated with the brittle material failure theory based on Weibull analysis. An alternate couple configuration that relies on the industry practice of redundant element design is investigated. Results showed that the alternate configuration considerably reduced the TE element and metallization stresses thereby enhancing the structural reliability with little trade-off in the optimized performance. The proposed alternate configuration could serve as a potential design modification for improving the reliability of systems optimized for thermoelectric performance.