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B1: Contacting and insulation
The thermoelectric generators consisted of heat exchangers, thermoelectric modules and coolant tanks could convert low-quality heat energy into electricity with the benefits of green, lack of moving parts and direct heat to electrical conversion. In current research, aim at the inhomogeneous temperture gradient distribution on heat exchanger surface and medium-high temperture thermoelectirc moudles can not meet the challenges of complex automotive environment, the heat transfer and insulation in thermoelectric generators was studied numerically and experimentally. By adjusting the thermal resistance between the heat exchanger and thermoelectric modules, the application of low temperature modules in high-temperature region was realized. The results showed that, with the adjustment of thermal resistance and thermal insulation, the temperature distribution between the surface of heat exchanger and modules was changed while the thermal conversion efficiency and power generation of thermoelectric modules positioned in the rear low temperature region was effectively increased. The power generation gradient distribution of each row of modules was improved simultaneously, reducing the difficult of module topology optimization in the late work.