Performance enhancement of a novel thermoelectric self-cooling system for electronic devices

Abstract

As a promising zero energy consumption technology, thermoelectric self-cooling (TESC) system has potential huge advantages in cooling of high-power electronic device. In this study, a novel TESC system with lower and upper heat sinks is proposed and theoretically investigated. The effect of the TE leg length, TE leg cross-sectional area and fin height arrangement at lower and upper heat sinks on the cooling capability and thermal-mechanical performance are studied. Furthermore, multi-objective genetic algorithm combined with true simulation result is carried to optimize the cross-sectional area of the n- and p-types legs, in which the leg is divided into six sections along the length direction. Finally, the overall performance among different design configurations is compared systematically under different heat power conditions. The results show that the TEG module placing directly on the heat sources has the worst performance in these several design configurations. In contrast, the proposed TESC system can dissipate a heat power of 340 W without energy consumption at a chip temperature limit of Tchip ≤ 85 °C, which increases by 70 % compared to passive air cooling. Besides, compared with the published Kiflemariam's model, the proposed TESC with the lower heat sink fin height of 10 mm presents always better performance. Further, the optimal TE leg can provide 5.2 % reduction in maximum thermal stress compared to the traditional rectangle TE leg. A suggested design configuration is developed based on various heat power. These results are of great significance to provide the guidance of advanced TESC system for electronic devices cooling.