Design and Analysis of a Thermoelectric Module to Improve the Operational Life

Abstract

This work proposes a method for reducing mechanical stresses induced in thermoelectric (TE) structure to increase the operational life of the device. For this purpose, based on preliminary studies of the deformation and stress contours of existing thermoelectric modules, a new circular arrangement for the thermoelements layout is designed. Numerical simulations for various geometries of TE modules have been done to investigate their thermomechanical/structural behavior under the same operating conditions. Simulation results show a significant reduction in the shear stress, the von Mises stress, and the total deflection relative to the existing rectangular layout design. In order to prove our finite element analysis is correct, two experiments have been done: 1) shear testing for stress analysis; 2) shadow moiré technique for deformation analysis. The result obtained from experiments is then compared with the results from their simulated model in ANSYS. There is pretty good agreement between manual calculation, experiments, and simulation results. In addition to all these, theoretical calculations of the stresses result from the bending moment and transverse shear force have been done. It is concluded that the new layout reduced the maximum stresses and the total deflections, which can greatly influence the operation lifetime of the components of the thermoelectric module.