Multi-parameters analysis and optimization of a typical thermoelectric cooler based on the dimensional analysis and experimental validation

Abstract

Performance improvement of the thermoelectric cooler depending on both the thermoelectric material development and the system design optimization will be positive and significant for various applications of thermoelectric cooling technology. This paper introduced a typical thermoelectric cooling model and constructed the overall heat transfer and electric-heat conversion model. Based on the dimensional analysis method, we deduced and obtained several necessary non-dimensional coefficients such as dimensionless cooling power, working current, and thermal conductance for analyzing the performance of the thermoelectric cooler. The dimensionless working current and thermal conductance reveal the relationship between the cooling capacity caused by the Peltier effect, the inner heat conduction of the PN material, and the total heat transfer capacity of the cold-side and hot-side. The multi-parameters analysis results show that the cooling power will reach up to the maximum when Kd, Id, and ω vary from 0.1 to 0.3, 0.08 to 0.12, 0.3 to 0.45, respectively. For validation, we constructed an experimental system for testing the cooling performance. Experimental results show that the optimal thermal conductance allocation ratio of the cold-side is the same as the simulation results. That is, the overall consideration of dimensionless coefficients is feasible and significant for ameliorating the thermoelectric cooling performance.