ICT2014 Abstracts

Thermoelectric (TE) power generation system can generate electricity from low-temperature heat sources, such as solar heat and waste heat. Traditionally, TE module has been designed under the condition where the temperatures in the hot and cold sides of TE elements are constant. When the surface of TE module is cooled by water at a constant temperature, but another surface is heated under a constant heat flux like solar heat, the hot-side temperature changes by the joule and peltier heat, because heat capacity of the hot-side insulator is not enough large. In this study, the suitable dimension of TE elements and the external resistance were considered under the condition of the constant heat flux instead of constant temperatures. The purpose of this study is to find the optimal conditions from the view of the heat conduction in addition to the TE phenomena.

A pair of Π-type was connected with the external resistance under the constant heat flux, and the temperature distribution was numerically solved by the analytical equation of heat balance. The hot side temperature was dropped due to the Peltier effect. In order to maximize the TE power, the external resistance should be larger than the internal resistance of the elements to restrain the current flow in this circuit. The dimension of TE elements should be optimized considering the effect of the heat flux, while that under condition of constant temperatures was determined only by the material properties like heat conductivity and electrical conductivity.