Effect of three parameters of the periodic rectangular pulsed heat flux on the electrical performance improvement to a thermoelectric generator

Pulsed heat source, especially the periodic rectangular pulsed heat flux, has attracted more attention in recent years, because of the effect that improving the power generation performance of thermoelectric generator (TEG). Hence, in the present study, a transient simulation model based on the coupling of electric conduction and heat transfer is carried out based on finite element method. The effect of pulsed heat flux on the electrical perfor-mance of TEG is studied by considering three critical parameters, the duty cycle, the amplitude ratio and the cycle period. It was found that the pulsed heat flux can stimulate TEG to produce more electric energy relative to a constant one. The influence modes of duty cycle, amplitude ratio and cycle period on transient output power are found. When the response reaches a relatively stable state, the growth rate will increase monotonically by 14.99% with each decrease of 0.1 duty cycle, while increase by 19.96% for every 10s increase in cycle period, and has a reciprocal relationship with high amplitude ratio. Besides, the effective scheme to further improve the effect of pulsed heat source on efficiency can be summarized as prolonging cycle period, increasing amplitude ratio to 1, and reducing duty cycle.