Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Sensor Powering
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Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Sensor Powering Yongjia Wu Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Mechanical Engineering Lei Zuo, Chair Thomas E. Diller Rui Qiao Michael D. Heibel 05/09/2019 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Thermoelectric, energy harvesting, heat transfer, sensor powering Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Sensor Powering Yongjia Wu ABSTRACT The dissertation solved some critical issues in thermoelectric energy harvesting and tried to broaden the thermoelectric application for energy recovery and sensor powering. The scientific innovations of this dissertation were based on the new advance on thermoelectric material, device optimization, fabrication methods, and system integration to increase energy conversion efficiency and reliability of the thermoelectric energy harvester. The dissertation reviewed the most promising materials that owned a high figure of merit (ZT) value or had the potential to increase ZT through compositional manipulation or nano-structuring. Some of the state-of-art methods to enhance the ZT value as well as the principles underneath were also reviewed. The nanostructured bulk thermoelectric materials were identified as the most promising candidate for future thermoelectric applications as they provided enormous opportunities for material manipulation. The optimizations of the thermoelectric generator (TEG) depended on the accuracy of the mathematical model. In this dissertation, a general and comprehensive thermodynamic model for a commercial thermoelectric generator was established. Some of the unnecessary assumptions in the conventional models were removed to improve the accuracy of the model. This model can quantize the effects of the Thomson effect, contact thermal and electrical resistance, and heat leakage, on the performance of a thermoelectric generator. The heat sink can be another issue for the design of high-performance TEG. An innovative heat sink design integrated with self-oscillating impinging jet generated by the fluidic oscillator arrays were adopted to enhance the heat convection. The performance of the heat sink was characterized by large eddy simulation. The compatibility mismatch had been a practical problem that hindered the further improvement of energy conversion efficiency of thermoelectrics. In this dissertation, a novel method to optimize the geometry of the thermo-elements was developed. By varying the thickness and cross-sectional area of each thermoelectric segment along the length of the thermo-element, the compatibility mismatch problem in the segmented TEG construction was eliminated. The optimized segmented TEG can make the best of the existing thermoelectric materials and achieve the maximum energy conversion efficiency in a wide temperature range. A segmented TEG with an unprecedented efficiency of 23.72% was established using this method. The complex geometry structure of the established thermo-elements would introduce extra difficulty in fabrication. Thus selective laser melting, a high-temperature additive manufacture method, was proposed for the fabrication. A model was built based on the continuous equations to guide the selective-laser-melting manufacturing of thermoelectric material with other nanoparticles mixed for high thermoelectric performance. Thermoelectric energy harvesting played a critical role in the self-powered wireless sensors, as it was compact and quiet. In this dissertation, various thermoelectric energy harvesters were established for self-powered sensors to in-situ monitor the working condition in the gas turbine and the interior conditions in nuclear canisters. The sensors, taking advantage of the thermal energy existing in the local environment, can work continuously and provide tremendous data for system monitor and diagnosis without external energy supply. Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Sensor Powering Yongjia Wu GENERAL AUDIENCE ABSTRACT The dissertation addressed some critical issues in thermoelectric energy harvesting and broadened its application for energy recovery and sensor powering. Some of the most advanced technologies were developed to improve the energy conversion efficiency and reliability of the thermoelectric energy harvesters. In this dissertation, a general and comprehensive thermodynamic model for a commercial thermoelectric generator (TEG) was established. The model can be used to optimize the design of the existing commercial TEG modules. High performance heat sink design was critical to maximize the temperature drop in the TEG module, thus increase the power output and energy conversion efficiency of the TEG. An innovative heat sink design integrated with self-oscillating impinging jet generated by the fluidic oscillator arrays were designed to cool the cold end of the TEG, thus enhance the performance of the TEG. The performance of the heat sink was characterized by large eddy simulation. A single thermoelectric material only had high thermoelectric performance in a narrow temperature range. A segmented TEG could achieve a high energy conversion efficiency over a wide temperature range by adopting different materials which had high thermoelectric performance at low, moderate, and hight temperature ranges. However, the material compatibility mismatch had been a practical problem that hindered the further improvement of energy conversion efficiency of the segmented TEG. In this dissertation, a novel method was developed to eliminate the compatibility mismatch problem via optimizing the geometry of the thermo-elements. A segmented TEG with an unprecedented efficiency of 23.72% was constructed using the method proposed in this dissertation. The complex geometry structure of the established thermo-elements would introduce extra difficulty in fabrication. Thus selective laser melting, a high-temperature additive manufacture method, was proposed for the fabrication. A physical model based on the conservation equations was built to guide the selective-laser-melting manufacturing of the optimized segmented TEG mentioned above. In this dissertation, two thermoelectric energy harvesters were built for self-powered sensors to in-situ monitor the interior conditions in nuclear canisters. The sensors, taking advantage of the thermal energy existing in the local environment, can work continuously and provide tremendous data for system monitor and diagnosis without external energy supply. Also, a compact thermoelectric energy harvester was developed to power the gas sensor for combustion monitoring and control. v Acknowledgment I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped and supported me during this endeavor. Without them, it would be impossible for me to complete this dissertation. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Lei Zuo, my Ph.D. adviser, for the constant help and encouragement he provided in the past four years. His guidance is invaluable for my entire professional career. His enthusiasm and dedication to the research inspired me to work hard and finally decided to continue my career in academia. His vision and knowledge enhanced my capacity to formulate and solve the problem in my projects. He gave me the freedom to explore the areas I had interest in and never discouraged my “stupid” ideas. His attitude to work will also continue to affect my future life. I am indebted to my families for their love and support in the past many years. Most of my thanks go to my parents, Mr. Zhenggen Wu and Mrs. Weining Lu. They had no chance to go to high school because of the Cultural Revolution that happened in their generation. They knew how valuable the knowledge was for my sister and me. They supported me to have my Ph.D. study in the USA though they had no idea what their son was doing. They had given sister and me all the riches that life could offer. I am also deeply grateful to my sister Jiamin Wu for her moral support. We grew up together and shared so many happy moments. I want to thank my grandparents for so much love they gave me when I was a small boy. I would never have made it here without them. I want to thank my master adviser, Professor Tingzhen Ming, who led me to research thermal and fluid science and engineering. He encouraged me to continue my Ph.D. study in the USA after I got my master degree under his supervision. I also want to thank Professor Thomas E. Diller, Professor Rui Qiao, and Dr. Michael D. Heibel for serving my advisory committee. Their comments have been constructive for my research and significantly improved the quality of my dissertation. I would also acknowledge Dr. Michael D. Heibel for his help with the gamma radiation experiments done in Westinghouse Company at Pittsburgh. vi I want to thank my colleagues at the energy harvesting center, including Jie Chen, Jackson Klein, Dr. Shifeng Yu, Dr. Shuyu Wang, Hanchen Zhou, and Kan Sun, for their generous help and technical discussions during my Ph.D. study. I would also want to think some of my friends, including Dr. Yilun Liu, Dr. Weiche Tai, Dr. Changwei Liang, Mingyi Liu, Yu Pan, Dr. Yan Ding, Xiaofan Li, Dr. Feng Qian, Dr. Sijing Guo, Hongjip Kim, Yinyin Fan, Yue Yuan, Qiumeng Xu, Qiuchi Xiong, Boxi Jiang, Jia Mi, Yuzhe Chen, Isil Anakok, Ahmed Sallam, and Chen Zhu. They made my life in Blacksburg to become more relaxed and full of good memories. I want to thank all staff members in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Special thanks go to Lauren Mills who helped me with most