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From: sgcpal@watdcsu.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Russian Thermoelectric Generator
Message-ID: <3086@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Mar-87 19:18:34 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.3086
Posted: Thu Mar  5 19:18:34 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Mar-87 21:40:16 EST
References: <24300001@silver>
Reply-To: sgcpal@watdcsu.UUCP (P.A.ul Layman [EE-Device Physics])
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 38

In article <24300001@silver> commgrp@silver.bacs.indiana.edu writes:
>During World War II, the Soviet Union manufactured a thermoelectric
>generator which was used to charge lead-acid batteries for radios.  It
>replaced the chimney of a kerosene lamp, and looked like a radial array
>of fins.
>
>Does anyone know details of this device?  One might surmise that it was
>an array of high-current thermocouples, probably made of inexpensive
>materials, e.g., iron and copper, but it must have produced at least 2.2
>volts.
I was sure that I had seen such a device before.
>
After consulting my undergrad text on the subject I found a picture of
such a device which was (maybe still) manufactured by 3M.  It produced
200mW at 9V.  It could run for 24 hrs on a tank of fuel (kerosene) that looks
like the one on a standard coleman lattern.  It goes on to say that the
thermocouples(I count 6) were hermentically sealed.  Therefore expensive?

It is described in:

B.Swanson and E. Somers, "Optimization of a Conventional-Fuel-Fired
Thermoelectric Generator," Journal of Heat Transfer, 81(1959), pp. 245-248.

A. Bayne Neild, "Portable Thermoelectric Generators," Paper No 645A,
Transactions of the SAE(1963).

The text in which I found the info was:

S. Angrist, "Direct Energy Conversion," 3rd edition, Allyn and Bacon Inc.,
Boston(1976), pp. 176.

Enjoy,
Paul A. Layman

University of Waterloo, Electrical Engineering,
Silicon Devices and Integrated Circuits Research Group (SiDIC)

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