Design of a Thermoelectric Device for Power Generation through Waste Heat Recovery from Marine Internal Combustion Engines

Georgios Konstantinou, Theodora Kyratsi and Loucas S. Louca
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Georgios Konstantinou: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus
Theodora Kyratsi: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus
Loucas S. Louca: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Modern ships discharge large amounts of energy into the environment. More specifically, internal combustion engines (ICE) of commercial and passenger ships waste significant amounts of thermal energy at high temperature through their exhaust gases that are discharged to the atmosphere. A practical approach of recovering some amount of this energy is by using thermoelectric generator systems, which can convert thermal into electrical energy, given that there is a significant temperature difference. It is the aim of this work to propose a thermoelectric generator to recover energy from the exhaust gases of marine ICEs. The proposed thermoelectric generator uses the outside surface of the ICE manifold as the hot side of the thermoelectric module, while the cold side is maintained at a low temperature through a heat sink and induced water flow. The goal of this work is to design this thermoelectric generator and identify the configuration that produces the maximum electric power. The analysis and design are performed with the use of modeling and simulation, while commercial software is employed to study the 3-dimensional coupled fluid flow and heat transfer at a steady state. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the parameters with the highest influence on power production. In addition to a full factorial sensitivity analysis, the more efficient Latin hypercube sampling is used. The analysis shows that significant energy of the exhaust gases can be converted into electric power with the use of an optimized heatsink, which creates the highest temperature difference between the two sides of the thermoelectric module.

Keywords: thermoelectric generators; marine ICE; modeling and simulation; design; Latin hypercube (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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