Experimental Investigation of Thermoelectric Self-Cooling System for the Cooling of Ultrasonic Transducer Drivers

Abstract

Electronic driver circuits are used for the driving of ultrasonic transducer systems. Due to the high frequency switching, thermal management is the main problem that has a significant effect on the reliability of the driver. Different applications are being studied to solve such overheating problems. In this study, the designed thermoelectric self-cooling system dissipates the excess heat generated in the push-pull drive circuit and improves system performance. Thermoelectric self-cooling (TSC) is a new thermoelectric application which provide the cooling of any heat-generating device without electricity consumption. This paper presents the experimental analysis of a TSC system. An experimental setup is designed on a 275W push-pull ultrasonic driver circuit. In this study, it has been shown how the performance of the thermoelectric system changes with the use of cold extender of different thicknesses. 5 and 10 mm thickness cold extenders have had a positive effect on the cooling performance of both the hot and cold surfaces of the self-cooling system. However, when the thickness of the cold extender is increased beyond the threshold, the heat capacity of the cold extender has prevented the temperature between the cold and hot surfaces to reach critical temperature differences which enables the fan to operate.