NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF SEMICONDUCTOR THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR

A thermoelectric generation model is proposed based on the structure of thermoelectric generator, working conditions, the effect of air heat transfer and contact resistance in thermoelectric components. In addition, the effect of the thermoelectric generator output performance under the condition of different temperature of the cold and heat source, contact resistance between the cold-end and hot-end, the load resistance and the contact resistance is calculated. The results show that the output voltage is linear associate with the temperature difference between hot and cold ends, however, the output power increase along with the increase of temperature of hot-end and decrease of cold-end. The output voltage reaches 5.76 V and the output power reaches 9.81 W when the temperature difference is 200 degrees C. Assume that the contact resistance is ignored, the output voltage and power reach peak values of 3.61 V and 3.85 W. The output performance of thermoelectric generator decreases with the increase of thermal contact resistance at hot and cold ends, and the reduction is getting lower and lower. With the increase of the load resistance, the output power increases at the beginning and then decreases. The optimal output power is 3.69 W when the contact resistance is 0 Omega and the optimal load resistance is 3.3 Omega. The maximum output power corresponding to neglecting the contact resistance will be reduced by 13.5% when the contact resistance is 0.5 Omega.