ABSTRACT
Advanced, high-performance thermoelectric (TE) energy recovery systems will have a unique and critical role in recovering waste energy in automotive and industrial applications worldwide, with the subsequent benefit of helping to increase global energy efficiency. Optimal design of these systems requires design optimization accounting for three crucial, interdependent design areas: thermoelectric design, thermal design, and structural design. Copious consideration and attention to detail in these three design regimes are equally important to that of obtaining high-performance TE materials in developing TE devices and systems that achieve their full performance potential for these applications. This chapter provides the foundation and methodology for addressing these three critical system design facets and their role in achieving high-performance TE waste energy recovery systems and solutions. TE system design performance is the design process where an optimum design identified in the design optimization process is then analyzed for a variety of nominal and off-nominal design conditions.
