Maximizing cooling/heating performance of thermoelectric modules across variable thermal loads via optimal control based on COP curves

Abstract

The thermoelectric module has high potential as a compact electrothermal actuator in the generation of cooling/heating effects without any moving part. However, one difficulty of the design is that the fundamental principles of optimal cooling/heating performance of thermoelectric modules are not yet fully understood and implemented. The purpose of this paper is to propose a mathematical optimization to gain insight and implement the most effective usages. In the proposed analysis, it is found that the coefficients of performance (COP) are dependent on the driving voltage and the ceramic-substrate temperatures of the thermoelectric module at both the cold and hot sides. The thermoelectric properties of a 91.2W thermoelectric module are used to simulate the proposed performance analysis to find the optimal driving voltage at desired operating temperatures at both sides on COP curves. The coefficient of determination R2 of 0.9832 indicates strong agreement on the coefficients of performance between the analysis and the experiments under one hundred thirty-seven operating conditions. With the proposed methodology, the 91.2W thermoelectric module can be operated at the maximum coefficient of performance across variable thermal loads of airflow where the optimal driving voltage is determined from desired operating temperatures at both sides.