Research On Semiconductor Thermoelectric Power Generator System Using Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust Heat

At present, our country became the world’s largest car-producing country and consuming country, but the car also brought a series of energy and environmental problems. How to realize the energy-saving and emission-reduction has become a key problem of the automobile industry. Emerged in the1970s, automobile exhaust thermoelectric power generator system is becoming the hotspot of the major car firms and research institutions, which is a vehicle exhaust emissions in the thermal energy conversion to electrical energy, can effectively improve the utilization of fuel rate, with strong prospects for application, and a broad market space.In this article, on the basis of related research and the exiting of automobile exhaust thermoelectric power generator system has the shortage of the output power is small and structure of the compact insufficient at this stage, this article researches the heat transfer process of engine exhaust gases and collector in the multi-field coupling conditions, providing the way to increase the temperature of collector’s surface and improving the collector’s surface temperature distribution. At the same time, through constructing a semiconductor thermoelectric generator test-bench, the optimization of the topology of the thermoelectric power modules, it is concluded that thermoelectric generator system output power and the relationship between system and the working condition of engine, and through comparing with simulation, providing experimental basis for simulation.In this article, based on the computational fluid dynamics, this article uses UG3D modeling software to establish the geometric model of the collector. The simulations are carried out with FLUENT,to analyze heat transfer processes of the collector, achieving simulation result of the coupling of the temperature, the pressure difference between import and export of collector and heat collecting efficiency, achieving the best comprehensive properties of collector.Through constructing thermoelectric power generator system based on ZS1100diesel engine test-bench, and using water-cooling, it completes the experiment of the performance of thermoelectric power generator system with different types of diesel operating condition. When the diesel engine speed of1200r/min and the engine output power of3.2kW, the maximum heat collecting efficiency of collector is49.15%;when the hot side and cold side temperature difference is130℃, the maximum output power is106.0W, the heat collecting efficiency of collector is35.44%, the thermoelectric conversion efficiency is4.68%, the efficiency of thermoelectric power generator system is2.33%.The simulation of collector will give a theoretical basis for optimizing the internal structure of collector constructing thermoelectric power generator system based on ZS1100diesel engine test-bench can provide a reference for future related research.