4 Engine exhust power generasion

system
ABSTRACT: In order to improve the thermal efficiency and fuel economy of automobile engine, make full
use of the waste heat of automobile exhaust for energy saving and emission reduction, a flat-plate type of
thermoelectric power generation(TEG) device is designed which makes full use of the car exhaust gas waste
heat. Firstly, introduce the basic principle of the TEG; choose the suitable TEG sheet according to the operating
characteristics of general gasoline engine. Secondly, establish the device model of exhaust waste heat TEG by
CATIA 3D software, choose the install method and quantity of TEG sheet, design the suitable circuit for the
system, at the same time, analyze of the basic application of the device. Finally, according to the data analysis
and calculation, find the cost and feasibility of the TEG device. The calculation results show that, the fuel
saving ratio of the system is 0.03L/h and it can recover the cost in 4 years. So, the TEG device has certain
feasibility and extensive application prospect.
KEYWORD: exhaust gas, TEG, thermal efficiency, automobile, Fuel economy
1 INTRODUCTION temperature difference, there will be a electromotive
As the development of the national economy and force between the two sides when the circuit is open;
improvement of people’s living standard, vehicles and a current in the circuit when it is close, as shown
have become common transportation tools in daily in Fig. 1 (Tu Xiao-Liang, 2015).
life. By 2015, the motor vehicle quantities have
reached 270 million. Although the government
supports and encourages the development and utility
of new energy vehicles, vehicles equipped with
internal combustion engine are still widely used.
Statistics shows that only about 40% of the total
energy that produced from fuel combustion can be
used to overcome the various resistances during
driving (Weng C C, 2013), and most of the energy is
not effectively utilized but released to the atmosphere
wastefully. If the waste heat in the engine’s exhaust
can be recovered and converted into electrical energy
by thermoelectric generator, the engine’s effective
thermal efficiency and fuel economy can be improved
to some extent so as to achieve the purpose of energy
saving. Fig. 1 Seebeck effect
After several experiments, Seebeck discovered
that within a certain range of temperature difference,
2 THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF the electromotive force e of the thermoelectric
THERMOELECTRIC POWER GENERATION The generation is proportional to the temperature
essence of thermoelectric power generation difference between the hot side and cold side(Yao
technology is to concerted the temperature difference Wu, 2015),
between the high-temperature heat source and the
low-temperature heat source into electrical energy, e PN (THJ TCJ )

which is the so called thermoelectric effect. The

PN P N
thermoelectric effects include Seebeck effect, Peltier
effect, Thomson effect, Joule effect and Fourier effect
PN is the semiconductor’s relative Seebeck
etc, among which the Seebeck effect, discovered by a
Germany scientist named T.J.Seebeck in 1821, is coefficient, P , N is the Seebeck coefficient of the
applied in the thermoelectric power generation semiconductor’s P,N pole.
technology. The Seebeck effect reveals that for the
Owing to that the electromotive force in single PN
PN junction made of p-type semiconductor and n-
junction of the thermoelectric materials is small, the
type semiconductor (p-type: rich in holes, ntype: rich
relatively larger current and electromotive force can
in electrons), and when its TH joint and TC joint are
be achieved by connecting the PN junction in series
under different temperature condition, resulting in an
or in Parallel (Yuan Xiao-hong, 2012).

© 2016. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 679

3 THE DESIGN OF THERMOELECTRIC
POWER GENERATION BASED ON ENGINE
EXHAUST GAS
3.1 Selection of thermoelectric power module
The thermoelectric power modules are mainly
determined by its materials and structural dimension,
and the main supplier includes Amerigon, Ferrotec,
Hi-Z in united state; Denso, TOSHIBA, Komatsu in
Japan; Thermonamic in domestic market and so on
(Xiao Zhe-peng,2014). But thermoelectric power
modules are different in properties due to their
various structures. Viewing from the perspective of Fig. 2 plate type thermal power generation device
highest heat-resisting temperature, the sectional- type
thermoelectric power modules from the Amerigon
Company can reach up to 500℃~700℃, and this kind As shown in the Fig. 3, the upper and lower heat
layers are acting as the heat collector, referring to the
of power module can efficiently use the temperature
hot side that transfers the heat of the exhaust to the
gradient on the hot side surface, resulting an optimal
thermoelectric power module group. The cold source
working temperature for each material. Although it
device is connected to the engine’s cooling system to
has a large generating capacity for single power
form the cold side of the thermoelectric power
module, it suffers a high requirement in processing
module. Since the automotive cooling system is
and high price; Komatsu applies BiTe alloy, a
stable and efficient in heat dissipating, using the
middle-low temperature material, in the
cooling system as the cold side can provide a stable
thermoelectric power module, which has a heat-
temperature difference between the hot side and cold
resisting temperature of 280℃(Sun Qiang, 2012);The side.
heatresisting temperature of thermoelectric power
modules from the Thermonamic in Jiangxi Province
is 330℃; owing to various limitation and combining
with the exhaust gas temperature, the model of
TEG127-.4-1.6 with an internal resistance of 3.3Ω is
selected in this design.

3.2 The Structure Design of TEG Based on Engine

Exhaust gas Fig. 3 profile of tail gas thermoelectric generator
Thermoelectric generator is the core of thermoelectric
generation system. The traditional thermoelectric
generator’s structure mainly consists of wasteheat 3.3 Material selection for the parts
channel, cooling layer, waste heat box layer, power (1)heat layer box
generation group and clamping device for the parts. The components of the heat layer box are bolted
As most of the thermoelectric power modules are together. Since the exhaust temperature in the inner
rectangular and inflexible, while most of the vehicles’ wall of the heat box is high, and the working
exhaust conduits are cylindrical, it is impossible for condition for the heat box is poor owing to that it is
thermoelectric power modules to be installed in the installed at the vehicle’s bottom, the material for it
exhaust conduits directly. So, the box structure is must be of heat thermo-stability, anti-thermal
applied in the designing of the waste heat box layer, expansively and corrosion resistance. In addition, the
which is used to introduce the exhaust gas as the heat heat layer box is also the heat collector, so it is also
source, namely, the thermoelectric generator is needed to be equipped with good thermal
designed to be flat-plate. As shown in Fig. 2, its conductance and stiffness.
working components mainly consist of three parts, By comparison, No.304 stainless steel is selected
namely, the heat resource collector, the as the material for heat layer box due to its good
thermoelectric power module group and the cold corrosion resistance, low temperature strength,
source device. mechanical properties and heat thermo-stability; and
also due to that it has no hardening behavior after heat
treatment.
(2)Cold layer box and intake and exhaust
manifolds

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 The materials for old layer box and intake and shows a circuit diagram of DC booster, where the Q-
exhaust manifolds are basically similar to the 1and Q-2 refers to transistors, which are turned on
selection of materials for heat layer box, so No.304 and off alternately to transfer the current to the
stainless steel is also material for the cold layer box primary circuit of the transformer. The input of the
and intake and exhaust manifolds transformer is square wave, and the required voltage
(3)Selection of clamping device material can be obtained by filtering and rectifying the output
As the internal part of the system is compressed by at B-1.
the clamp device, the material for clamping device
needs to be provided with relative high stiffness and
toughness, and also a cheap price. After compared
with various materials, the grey cast iron is found to
be as the suitable material.

3.4 Connection of thermoelectric power modules

So far, the voltages for the vehicle battery are 12V or
24V, and for the 12V battery, its charging voltage is
Fig. 4 the circuit diagram of booster
commonly between 14V-16V. If the temperature
difference between the hot side and cold side of the
single thermoelectric power module is 100℃, then
the electromotive force and current will be about 3.0- 5 EXPERIMENT DESIGN AND RESULT
4.0V and 0.15-0.25A respectively. So in this design, ANALYSIS
five thermoelectric power modules are connected in 5.1 Design of the experiment
series into rows (generating 15V electromotive
force), and four rows of modules are connected in An experiment is designed to test the thermoelectric
parallel (generating 0.8A current). The gap between generation effect in this article. At the hot side,
two power modules is 12mm for the arrangement of microcomputer heating plate is used to heating the
conductor and the filling of heat insulator. aluminum sandwich heat storage block. At the cold
side, the engine’s coolant is used to cool the cold side.
The load in the circuit is represented by resistance,
3.5 Location of the thermoelectric generation device and the voltage and current are measured by
According to the thermoelectric principle, once the voltmeter and ammeter, the test schematic diagram is
thermoelectric power module is given, the voltage shown as Fig. 5.
generated by single thermoelectric power module is
determined by the temperature at the hot side (since
the temperature at the cold side is stable due to the T1 Coolant circulation
cooling system’s stable cooling temperature). 1 2 3 4 5
Therefore, the thermoelectric generation device needs T2
microcomputer heating apparatus
to be mounted as closely as the manifold. But the
TEG device Aluminum sandwich heat
limited working temperature range for the previously
given thermoelectric power module is about 350℃, V
so a position of the manifold with suitable
A
temperature and big enough space is selected when
mounting the device. Summarizing the above
requirements and characteristics, the thermoelectric Fig. 5 Test schematic diagram
generation device is located between the muffler and In order to ensure the reliability and validity of the
the three way catalyst. results, the experiment is needed to be tested many
times and calculated the average as the final result.

4 DESIGN OF RELEVANT CIRCUIT 5.2 Analysis of the test results

As the driving cycle changes in real time, the exhaust
gas temperature will vary, resulting in a unstable Taking five thermoelectric power modules connected
output voltage of the system. In addition, since the in series relationship as the research object, and the
output voltage of the thermoelectric generation cold resource temperature is controlled at 20℃, while
device is relatively low due to its material and the hot resource temperature is controlled by the
structural limitation, and the voltage supplied for microcomputer heating apparatus. The relationship
battery and other power consumption equipments is between the electromotive force caused by
relatively high, so boosting circuit and voltage thermoelectric generation principle and the
stabilizing circuit are equipped in this system. Fig. 4
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temperature difference value can be measured by the wasteheat recovery of car exhaust, the system cost
test, as shown in Fig. 6. recovery time is up to four years. The major reasons
are as follows: firstly, the thermoelectric conversion
efficiency in the thermoelectric power module
25
remains relative low; secondly, the heat collection
efficiency in the heat collector is needed to be
20
improved to higher level.
15
According to the calculation, if the generation
efficiency of each thermoelectric power module is
10
improved to a power of 5W, then, the cost recovery
5 time will be reduced to about 1.5 years. Addition, the
0
energy resource shortage is increasingly serious and
0 20 40 60 80 100
the oil will be more and more expensive. If the oil
Temperature difference ( ℃)
price increases to eight Yuan, then the cost recovery
time will be further reduced.
Fig. 6 Relationship between the temperature difference and
output voltage 7 SUMMARY
The automotive exhaust thermoelectric generation
By averaging the test result, it indicates that if the technology can efficiently improve the utilization of
temperature difference value is 100℃, the automotive exhaust waste-heat, resulting in the
electromotive force will be 23.5V, and the current energy saving and emission reduction purpose and
will be 0.712A, thus obtaining a power of almost having a promising market prospect and high
10W. economy benefit.
Based on the design in this article, further research
on thermoelectric material, generation efficiency
6 COST AND FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS improvement, the cost reduction and the optimization
The test results shows that if the temperature of the automotive exhaust thermoelectric generation
difference between the single thermoelectric power system can lead to further improvement of the
module’s two ends is 100℃, it can generate a power vehicles’ fuel economy, having a widely application
of about 2W. After connecting five modules in one prospect in the car industry.
row and connecting 4 rows in parallel relation, the
power will be:
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