Thermo-Electric Generators (TEG)
Group Project
Project Mentor: Dr. Ibrahim Hassan, TAMU
Fall 2015
This is hands-on research project grew out of the MEEN 404 - Engineering Experiments course at TAMU. I was part of a team that was trying to experimentally identify the most efficient cooling method for cold-side management of a TEG.
A conference paper was published that encapsulates the work done (attached at bottom of page).
Background
Simply put, Thermo-Electric Generators (TEGs) are devices that convert a temperature difference into a voltage potential. They are essentially an array of alternating n-type and p-type semi conductor pellets. The TEG we used had a rated maximum output of 13W, was about 40 mmx 40 mm in size, and could sustain temperatures up to 300°C.
Item 2a: A TEG with blobs of thermal paste, being prepared for mounting.
Cold Side Management
Item 2b:The complete test setup, with Data Acquisition cards on the left and the Hybrid cooler on the right.
Item 2c: Representative schematic for the test setups. In this case, Fin cooling is shown
Item 2d: Schematic for water circulation cooling. The water was drawn from a source reservoir placed higher than the sink, to simulate a dam.
The two sides of the TEG plate are called the 'Hot side' and 'Cold Side'. As the temperature difference between these two sides increases, the voltage output increases. Typically, TEGs are implemented to extract useful energy from waste heat. Hence, the heat flux coming in is more or less constant and the hot side temperature cannot be actively controlled. On the other hand, different cooling methods can be implemented on the cold side to control its temperature. This was the scope of the project. We built various test setups and used both active and passive air and water cooling methods, with a total of 6 different cooling methods: Bare plate cooling (exposing the cold side directly to air), fin cooling using an aluminum fin, hybrid cooling using a CPU 'NoFan' cooler from IcePipe Corp. (shown in Item 2b), forced air convective cooling using a wind tunnel, passive water bath cooling and active water cooling using a circulation system.
Setup
While we had to build different test setups for each cooling method, the position of the bare wire thermocouples and the hot side configuration were the kept same for each setup, to allow a valid comparison. Fun Fact: The bare-wire thermocouples used were just 0.125 mm in diameter, to ensure maximum area of contact between the plates! A schematic for the case of Fin cooling is presented in Item 2c.
The proposed schematic for the active water circulation method is shown in Item 2d.
Publication
The work was presented and published in International Conference on Materials & Energy, 2017 as a conference paper.
For a copy of the paper, click the icon below
Team : Mai Hamed, Noor Al-Akhawand, Pavithra Manghaipathy (Team lead), and Vamsi Krishna Vegamoor (that's me)