Design of a novel thermoelectric module based on application stability and power generation

Application stability and power generation of a conventional cube-type thermoelectric (TE) module were analyzed considering different shapes. It was found that the stress concentration occurred in the copper electrodes of cube-type ones. Further, cube TE legs were re-designed into cylinder ones. And stress concentration in the copper electrodes has reduced. To explore novel designing for enhancing efficiency, the truncated cone-type TE module with a smaller cold end area was designed. The results show that application stability and power generation have been optimized synchronously. The maximum stress has dropped by 1.9% compared with the cube-type TE module, and the maximum deformation is decreased by 1.4%. When the temperature difference is 80K, the output power of the novel TE module is enhanced by 9.3%. The proposed truncated cone-type TE module has high reliability and applicability, and it can be a promising method for heat harvesting.

Automated summary

The stability and power generation of a conventional cube-type thermoelectric module were analyzed. Stress concentration in the copper electrodes of the cube-type module was identified. The redesign of the TE legs into cylinder shape reduced stress concentration. Furthermore, a truncated cone-type TE module with a smaller cold end area was designed, resulting in optimized application stability and power generation.