Simple engineering design for complex thermoelectric generators based on reduced current approach

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are niche candidate for the field of energy management as electrical generator devices. Generally, comprehensive and accurate design techniques for TEGs (thermoelectric generators), such as reduced current approach (RCA), are complex and time consuming processes. This study develops a simple, comprehensive and accurate TEG designing technique based on RCA. The proposed method can predict the most efficient TEG architecture with more than 97% accuracy comparing to the RCA over wide range of possible temperature and zT for present TEG applications. Moreover, the proposed method predicts the electrical outputs with high accuracies: electrical current with more than 99% accuracy, thermoelectric potential difference with 88-96% accuracy, and power output with 88-96% accuracy. This engineering approach can save significant amount of time and reduce the complexity of TEG in TEG design process. Moreover, this technique can be easily used without having a broad knowledge about design of TEGs.