Journal
JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
Volume 42, Issue 7, Pages 1382-1388Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11664-012-2254-8
Keywords
Thermoelectrics; thermal fatigue; Young's modulus; waste-heat recovery
Categories
Funding
- US Department of Energy [DE-FC26-04NT 42281]
- Office of Naval Research MURI [N000140310789]
- Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), Office of Naval Research [N00014-09-1-0785]
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic energy Sciences [DE-SC0001054]
- Department of Energy, Revolutionary Materials for Solid State Energy Conversion Center, an Energy Frontiers Research Center
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Lead-antimony-silver-tellurium (LAST) thermoelectric materials are candidates for waste-heat recovery applications. However, rapid heating and cooling (thermal shock) imposes thermomechanical stresses that can cause microcracking. Waste-heat recovery applications involve thermal fatigue, in which a series of hundreds or thousands of individual thermal shock events can lead to accumulation of microcrack damage in brittle thermoelectrics such as LAST. Microcracking in turn leads to a decrease in transport properties, such as electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, and mechanical properties, including elastic modulus and strength. Thus, microcracking can affect both thermoelectric performance and mechanical integrity. In this study, LAST specimens were rapidly cooled (quenched) into a fluid (water or silicone oil) in order to compare the results with the vast majority of thermal shock studies of brittle materials that are quenched in a similar manner. Decreases in elastic modulus, E, with accumulating microcrack damage were measured using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS). The evolution of thermal fatigue damage observed in this study is also described well by an equation that successfully describes thermal fatigue damage in a variety of brittle materials.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available