Temperature and Thermally Induced Stress Distribution in a Thermal 在热温度和热应力分布.docVIP

Temperature and Thermally Induced Stress Distribution in a Thermal Electric Device Jun Shi 3/26/3006 Abstract This report investigates thermal stress in a multi-layered thermal electric device for power generation where high temperature gradient is expected. A parametric 2D plane strain finite element model was built with different thermal and elastic properties in each layer. Thermal boundary conditions were imposed on the finite element model to mimic thermal loading in actual application. The predicated temperature field was fed into a stress finite element model to derive the thermal stress distribution, which was then compared against material strength.  1. Introduction Thermal electric (TE) effects were discovered more than a century ago by Seebeck, Petlier and Thomson [Rowe, 2005]. Such effects can be explored for the purpose of heating, cooling and power generation, in a manner by which no moving parts are required and therefore it results in quiet and small power generation units [Strnad, 2003]. Figure 1 (a) power generation from Seebeck mode; (b) cooling from Peltier mode [Strnad, 2003] Despite of these advantages, progress towards practical application has been slow in the past century until recently when high performance thermal electric materials are being developed. A major breakthrough comes from TE materials based on supper lattice atomic structure that maximizes electric conductivity while keeping thermal conductivity low [Chen,2003]. Even with the availability of high performance thermal electric materials, application to the power generation by way of exhaust heat recovery is still challenging, primarily due to the high temperature gradient present in such application and the resulting high thermal stresses. The high thermal stresses cause de-bonding (Figure 2) between various layers in the TE device and leads to poor thermal and/or electric contact [Tajima,2005]. As a consequence of this, the performance of a thermal electric devices dete