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Experimental and Simulation Studies on Thermoelectric Cooler: A Performance Study Approach

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Abstract

The current experimental and simulation studies focus on two distinctive approaches on developing performance specifications on a typical thermoelectric cooler. The performance specifications considered for the current study involves cooling capacity, voltage, and current for different temperature ranges on hot side of the module. Simulation studies were carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics software for analyzing the coefficient of performance (COP). Thermoelectric cooler’s performance was simulated for the module’s hot side temperature ranges of about 303.15–333.15 K with a stipulated temperature interval of around 5 K. COP is evaluated at various temperature ranges (20 K, 40 K, and 60 K) over the module for each temperature prevailing on the hot side. The whole system is numerically modeled and the final attained results were correlated with the results obtained from simulation. Factors considered for modeling includes Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, and resistivity variation of the Peltier elements.

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Acknowledgements

The authors like to thank the Institute for Energy studies, Anna University for providing technical support for the current investigation. The authors would like to mention that there is no financial grant received for this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute for Energy Studies, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India

    K. Venkatesan & M. Venkataramanan

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  1. K. Venkatesan
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  2. M. Venkataramanan
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Correspondence to K. Venkatesan.

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Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix 1

See Table 2.

Table 2 COP variation
Full size table

1.2 Appendix 2

See Table 3.

Table 3 DTMax vs hot side temperature
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1.3 Appendix 3

See Table 4.

Table 4 Qmax vs hot side temperature
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1.4 Appendix 4

See Table 5.

Table 5 Tc (minimum) vs hot side temperature
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1.5 Appendix 5

See Tables 6, 7, 8.

Table 6 Sm for ΔT = 0
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Table 7 Km for ΔT = 0
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Table 8 Rm for ΔT = 0
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Venkatesan, K., Venkataramanan, M. Experimental and Simulation Studies on Thermoelectric Cooler: A Performance Study Approach. Int J Thermophys 41, 38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-020-2613-2

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