Integrated Design Of Regenerative Thermoelectric Direct Conversion Battery

The regenerative thermoelectric direct conversion battery is a new kind of device providing energy, including the high temperature thermal energy storage container, alkali metal thermoelectric direct converter and the capillary cooler. The high temperature thermal energy storage container is the heat source, it passes heat to alkali metal thermoelectric converter by means of solid thermal interface contact, thermoelectric direct converter will absorb the heat directly into electricity, capillary cooler colds the end of thermoelectric direct converter for cooling, achieving variable conditions control by changing the temperature of the cold end of thermoelectric direct converter. In this Article, the author concentrates on the researches of enhancing the thermal conduction between high temperature thermal energy storage container and alkali metal thermoelectric direct converter,the researches of coiling system between capillary cooler and the low-temperature-point of alkali metal thermoelectric direct converter and the researches of simulation of the overall performance.In terms of enhancing the thermal conduction, the author used the methods of adds filling materials between the solid interface to enhance the thermal conduction. In this Article the author used the cut-off cone model to simulate the contact surface profile and established two-dimensional mathematical model. This model is used to study the enhanced thermal effect of different thickness and different filling materials, the results show that:the excessive temperature drop due to the too large of contact resistance can not meet the requirements when no filler material between the interface, by comparing the enhanced thermal effect of different filling thickness and different filling materials, the author got that when 0.5mm of copper is chosen as filler material between the interface,the temperature drop is small and can meet the requirements, this contact resistance is chosen as the design resistance.In terms of capillary cooling, two-dimensional mathematical model was developed based on Dacy's law to simulate the flow, heat transfer and phase change phenomena of refrigerating in the capillary cooler. In the momentum equation and energy equation, source term added to solve the process of mass and energy transfer in the phase change, VOF model is used to track the vapor-liquid interface successfully. Based on the model, the author used numerical simulation method to study the performance of two different structure capillary cooler, the author studied the cooling performance and thermal insulation performance of different pore size, different porosity, different porous wick materials, the results show that:Within a certain range, on the one hand,the greater the pore size, the greater the porosity, and the greater the thermal conductivity of the wick material,the lower the temperature of heating wall, the more uniform temperature distribution of heating wall, the smaller the vapor volume of the cooler, the better the cooling effect.However, in order to prevent condensation of sodium vapor, the heating wall temperature is not too low, the above parameters can not be too large; on the other hand, the greater the pore size, the greater the porosity, and the smaller the thermal conductivity of the wick material,the better the thermal insulation performance.In terms of overall performance of the simulation, the author established the whole simulation model of the battery and got the variable condition control performance curve of the wall temperature of high temperature thermal energy storage container Tx and the temperature of cooling water Tf on battery through the simulation, at the same time the author got that Tx could realize battery greatly control, Tf could realize battery little amplitude control,both could realize precise control of the batteries.