Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Heat Sinks With Various Fin Geometries on the Performance of a Thermoelectric Generator

Abstract

In this study, effect of heat sink geometries on the performance of a thermoelectric generator was researched. In this context, fins with different geometries (flat fin, square pin fin, hexagonal pin fin, circle pin fin) placed to aluminium heat sink and their effects on heat transfer and electricity generation were investigated numerically. Calculations were carried out according to three different hot surface temperatures and five different air velocities. As a result of this study, it was determined that the electrical output increased with the increase of air velocity and hot surface temperature in all geometries. The highest electrical outputs were obtained at 150 °C hot surface temperatures and 15000 Reynolds numbers, while the lowest electrical outputs were obtained at 50 °C hot surface temperatures and 5000 Reynolds numbers in all geometries. The best thermal and electrical performance was obtained with flat fin heat sink and the worst in the TEG system without heat sink. The highest power outputs of the flat fin heat sink and without heat sink TEG systems were 6.42 W and 1.12 W, respectively. In addition, the highest conversion efficiencies of the flat fin heat sink and without heat sink TEG systems were 14.94% and 5.54%, respectively.

Thermal Performance of a Novel Non-Tubular Absorber with Extended Internal Surfaces for Concentrated Solar Power Receivers

“…Singh et al [20] explored the heat transfer characteristics of embossed heat sinks subjected to natural convection and found that the Nusselt number for embossed fin increased with the impression angle and pitch. The effect of heat sink geometries on the performance of a thermoelectric generator was researched by Özbektas et al [21], who found that the electrical output increased with increasing air velocity and surface temperature. The application of heat sinks with a similar structure in a heat exchanger devices has not been thoroughly investigated, nor have the pressurized directional flow characteristics or the impact of the geometric parameters.…”

Heat Transfer in Thermoelectric Generators for Waste Energy Recovery in Piston Engines

“…Ozbektas et al [20] studied the cooling performance of a heat sink with flat fins on a TEG. The same authors also investigated whether a fin heat sink was used to obtain higher efficiency by cooling the TE more effectively [21]. Pujol et al [22] proposed a method to obtain the optimum plate-fin heat sink with forced convection.…”