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The vehicle engine exhaust wastes heat. For the conventional scheme, the hot-end of the thermoelectric module is connected with the exhaust pipe, while the cold-end is cooled through the vehicle engine cooling cycle. The variation of vehicle engine operating conditions brings the instability of the hot-end temperature, which affects the power generation performance of thermoelectric materials and increases the damage risk to the thermoelectric materials caused by the high temperature. This research adopts the heat transfer oil circulation as the intermediate fluid to absorb the dynamic heat flux of the vehicle engine exhaust so as to release the heat steadily to the hot-end of the thermoelectric module. The thermal characteristics of the target diesel vehicle engine exhaust gas are evaluated based on the experimental data firstly.

Vehicle exhaust waste-heat recovery with thermoelectric power generators can improve energy efficiency, as well as vehicle fuel economy. In the conventional structure, the hot-end of thermoelectric module is directly connected with the outer wall of the exhaust pipe, while the cold-end is connected with the water pipe’s outer wall of the vehicle engine cooling cycle. However, the variety of vehicle engine operating conditions leads to the instability of the hot-end temperature, which will reduce the generating efficiency of the thermoelectric modules and also shorten its service life. This research is on the basis of constructing a heat transfer oil circulation, and to study the action principles and implementation methods of it.

While the car ownership increasing all over the world, the unutilized thermal energy in automobile exhaust system is gradually being realized and valued by researchers around the world for better driving energy efficiency. For the unexpected urban traffic, the frequent start and stop processes as well as the acceleration and deceleration lead to the temperature fluctuation of the exhaust gas, which means the unstable hot-end temperature of the thermoelectric module generator (TEG). By arranging the heat conduction oil circulation at the hot end, the hot-end temperature’s fluctuation of the TEG can be effectively reduced, at the expense of larger system size and additional energy supply for the circulation. This research improves the TEG hot-end temperature stability by installing solid heat capacity material(SHCM) to the area between the outer wall of the exhaust pipe and the TEG, which has the merits of simple structure, none energy consumption and light weight.

The automobile exhaust energy can be recovered by the thermoelectric module generator(TEG). Owing to the complex urban traffic, the exhaust gas’s temperature fluctuations are resulted, which means the unstable hot-end temperature of the TEG. By installing solid heat capacity material(SHCM) to the area between the outer wall of the exhaust pipe and the TEG, it is possible to appropriately reduce the temperature fluctuation, but there is still a fluctuation of the TEG’s power output. Then by adding voltage filter circuit (VFC) after the TEG, the power output stability can be improved. This research uses SHCM and VFC to improve the stability of the exhaust gas generation. Firstly, the three-dimensional heat transfer model of the exhaust pipe thermoelectric power generation system is established. The heat capacity materials with low thermal resistance and high heat capacity were selected as the research object based on previous research.

In vehicles with urea-SCR system, normal operation of the urea-SCR system and engine will be influenced if there are deposits appearing on exhaust pipe wall. In this paper, a commercial vehicle is employed to study the influence factors of deposits through the vehicle road test. The results show that, urea injection rate, temperature and flow field have impacts on the formation of deposits. When decreasing the urea injection rate of calibration status by 20%, the deposit yield would reduce by 32%. If the ambient temperature decreased from 36 °C to 26 °C, the deposit yield would increase by 95%. After optimizing the exhaust pipe downstream of the urea injector by removing the step surface, only a few flow marks of urea droplets are observed on the pipe wall, and no lumps of deposits existing.

To make full use of engine exhaust heat and further improve the utilization of the energy efficiency of the heavy truck, thermoelectric module is used to contribute to thermoelectric power generation. The hot-end temperature of the module varies with the engine operating condition because it is connected with the exhaust pipe. The cold-end of the thermoelectric module is mainly cooled by engine cooling system. Increasing the temperature difference between the hot-end and cold-end of the thermoelectric module is a good way to improve the thermoelectric conversion efficiency. For the poor controllability of the hot-end temperature of the thermoelectric module, this study puts forward by lowering the cold-end temperature of the thermoelectric module so as to ensure the improvement of the thermoelectric conversion efficiency. The cooling circle for the cold-end of the thermoelectric module which is independent of the engine cooling system is built.