Finite Element Analysis on the Thermoelectric Generator for the Waste Heat Recovery of Solar Application

Thermoelectric generator (TEG) is the solid state device that converts the thermal gradient into electrical energy. TEG is widely used as the renewable energy source especially for the electronic equipment that operates with the small amount of electrical power. In the present analysis, the finite element analysis (FEA) using ANSYS is conducted on a model of the TEG attached with the aluminium, Al plate on the hot side of the TEG. This simple construction of TEG model was built in order to be used in the waste heat recovery of solar application. It was shown that the changes of the area and thickness of the Al plate increased the temperature gradient between hot and cold sides of TEG. This directly increase the voltage produced by the TEG based on the Seeback effect. The increase of the thermal gradient due to the increment of thickness and width of Al plate might be because of the increase of thermal resistance of Al plate. This finding provides a valuable data in design process to build a good TEG attached with Al plate for the waste heat recovery of solar application.