Abstract:

Studies on thermoelectric generators (TEG) are becoming widespread day by day and the diversity of usage areas of generators is increasing. Individuals using TEG modules appear to be able to produce the required electricity for various uses from their own bodies. It is hoped that electricity will be generated from TEG modules that will be implanted in the human body because of this foresight. In order to obtain power from these TEG modules, which can be used for implantable devices, the temperature difference in different parts of the body is used. In the study, a thermal model of human living tissue was examined to investigate parameters affecting energy harvesting from human with TEG. A realistic TEG model was determined to accurately calculate the power generated by TEG. The thermal model was applied with using the finite volume method (FVM). Four important factors that affect generated power by TEG were chosen such as fat thickness (Lfat), leg length of TEG (Lleg), convection boundary condition on skin (hskin) and heat generation of muscle tissue (Qgen). The effects of these factors on temperature difference of TEG legs and power output were investigated using 2k factorial design method. As a result, maximum and minimum values were found as 0.26 °C and 1.13 °C respectively for the temperature difference between legs. According to these temperature difference values, the power outputs obtained from the TEG module are 3.86 µW and 55.54 µW, respectively. In addition, Lleg, hskin and Qgen have a positive effect on TEG power output. As analysis of variance (ANOVA) result, the percentage contribution of factors A and B is high, so they have strong effects on both responses.

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