Design, Modeling and Optimization of Thermoelectrical Power Generation Devices

Thermoelectric generators (TEG) can convert waste heat that abounds in modern societies into electricity in an environmentally friendly and reliable manner. The development works mostly focused on thermoelectric materials required a significant amount of heat and mass transfer optimization and engineering parametric analysis. An effective heat exchanger design has been a limiting factor in the TEG systems to achieve a high efficiency. This thesis presents micro scale design of heat sinks applied to the TEG systems. The purpose of considering the heat transfer and mass flow in the system is providing compact and light power systems as well as the pumping power, the power generation, and the cost per performance of the system are modified. This PhD dissertation develops and establishes the basic layout of the micro-structured heat sinks by a system design strategy connected to the theoretical approaches. The geometrical effects of the TEG on the heat transfer characteristics in the heat sink are studied in conjunction with computational simulation to explore the effective design of the microchannel heat sink. In addition, output power of a TEG module versus pumping power required in a microchannel heat sink is investigated experimentally.