Abstract
Recently, thermoelectric generators (1EGs) have drawn great attention in the automobile field, because they can directly convert waste heat discharged by engine into electricity. However, the benefits are nonidentical when the same thermoelectric generator applied to different vehicles. To investigate the effects of a thermoelectric generator system on the performance of different cars, a specific 1EG has been proposed, as well as the analysis about the power caused by TEG has been performed. Then, an energy efficiency gain factor has been developed to study the energy recovery potential for three types of conventional vehicles. According to results computed by a theoretical model, it is found that TEG power is highly affected by temperature and mass flow rate of exhaust. Considering the parasitic losses, it can be concluded that a blow-down loss should be considered carefully if applying a TEG system to a heavy-duty vehicle, and the 1EG weight should be as low as possible for a light-duty automobile. It seems that the gains from thermoelectric generators can be higher by matching 1EG sizes with different types of conventional vehicles. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.