Heat Exchanger Assisted Exhaust Heat Recovery with Thermoelectric Generator in Heavy Vehicles
M. A. Hassan, Raunak Samanta
Abstract
The automobile industry is in a constant pursuit to improve the fuel economy of vehicles. The internal combustion engine is inefficient due to its inherent irreversibility. Around 30% of the combustion energy is lost in the form of heat with the exhaust gasses. If this lost energy is recovered and utilized, then it will improve the overall fuel economy of the vehicle. Herein, a waste heat recovery concept is presented to recover heat from exhaust gasses in a heavy commercial vehicle. Two exhaust gas heat exchangers are conceptualized and their performances are compared. A novel idea of immersing thermoelectric modules in coolant is proposed instead of using a separate cooling block or channel. The thermal performance is evaluated considering transformer oil as coolant instead of commonly used engine coolant. The performance of two heat exchangers one having a parallel flat plate fin core and the other having a pin fin core configuration is investigated. The effect of coolant volume flow rate and exhaust gas mass flow rate also is analyzed.