Authors: ZH Jin
Publish Date: 2012/12/18
Volume: 180, Issue: 1, Pages: 129-136
Abstract
This work investigates buckling behavior of thin film thermoelectrics subjected to a temperature gradient Both a singlelayer thermoelectric film and multilayered structures are studied The multilayered structure consists of a ptype and ntype thermocouple separated by an insulating layer with or without additional supporting membrane layers The temperatures and thermoelectrically induced stresses and membrane forces are first presented The elastic stability theories of homogeneous plates and laminated composites are subsequently used to determine the temperature differential between the hot and cold junctions that causes buckling of the thin film structures The numerical results show that a singlelayer thermoelectric film could buckle at a temperature differential of around 10 K for large lengthtothickness ratios The multilayered thermoelectric thin film structures exhibit significantly higher buckling temperature differentials due to reduced overall lengthtothickness ratios
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