PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF

THERMOELECTRIC
COOLER VIA OPTIMIZATION
TECHNIQUES

UNDER SUPERVISION OF SUBMITTED BY

MR.S.BHANU PRAKASH ABHISHEK KUMAR
DEPT. OF MECHANICAL ENGG. BL.EN.P2TSE19001
CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION
• WORKING PRINCIPLE
• LITERATURE REVIEW
• ASSUMPTIONS
• BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
• OBJECTIVE
• Conclusion
• REFERENCES
• FUTURE WORK
INTRODUCTION

• Thermoelectric coolers are promising Alternative to conventional refrigeration system based on gas and liquid compression.
• Thermoelectric coolers operate according to the Peltier effect,which creates temperature difference by transferring heat
between two electric junctions
• A Peltier cooler or heater or thermoelectric heat pump is a solid state which transfers heat from one side of the device to the
other side ,with consumption of electrical energy
• It can be used either for cooling or heating but the main application is cooling
• Two unique semiconductors are used one n-type and other p-type ,because they need to have different electron densities
• Combination of one n-type and p-type semiconductors together formed a couple.
• Generally thermoelectric couples are electrically in series and thermally in parallel
• While both p-type and n-type materials are alloys of bismuth and tellurium ,they both have different free electron densities
at the same temperature.
WORKING PRINCIPLE

• Peltier effect states that there is an opposite phenomenon to the Seebeck Effect, which says heat energy could be absorbed
at one dissimilar metal junction and discharged at the other junction when an electric current flowed within the closed
circuit.
• Applying a DC voltage causes the positive and negative charge carriers to absorb heat from one side and transfer it to the
opposite side. Therefore, the surface where energy is absorbed becomes cold and the opposite surface, where the energy is
releaseed, becomes hot.
• For N-type of semiconductor, heat is absorbed from the junction near to the negative terminal and heat is releases at the
junction near to the positive terminal.
• For P-type of semiconductor, heat is absorbed from the junction near to positive terminal and released at the junction near to
negative terminal.
• By arranging it in a array it is possible to release heat to the one side and absorb from another side. Using these special
properties of the TE “couple”, it is possible to team many pellets together in rectangular arrays to create practical
thermoelectric modules
• P- type dice are composed of material having a deficiency of electrons while n-type have an excess of electron as the
current flows they try to maintain a new equilibrium with in the material.
LITERATURE REVIEW
TITLE AUTHOR MAJOR FINDINGS

Performance enhancement Limei Shena, Wenshuai Zhanga, The Qc and COP of two-different
investigation of thermoelectric and Guanyu Liua TE element could be remarkably
cooler with segmented improved by 118.1%
configuration and 2.1% for (.7mm to 2mm

Multiphysics Modelling and Asutosh Prasad and Raj CN

Multilevel Optimization of Thiagarajan The multilevel optimization of TEG
Thermoelectric cooler shows potential in maximum
conversion of waste heat into useful
electric power .

Review of thermoelectric Samson Shittua, Guiqiang Lia Detailed review of thermoelectric

geometry and structure Xudong Zhaob, geometry and structure
optimization for performance optimization were presented
enhancement
 TITLE AUTHOR MAJOR FINDINGS

Geometric optimization of Yi-Hsiang Cheng and Wei-Keng Lin Produces a maximum cooling
thermoelectric coolers in a capacity of 6.3W and a
confined volume corresponding COP of 0.55.

A new approach to optimum M. Yamanashi Optimum value of cop was found

design in thermoelectric for a cooler of size (35*35) which
cooling system( Journal of was .51
Applied Physics)
PHYSICS USED IN COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS 5.5
ASSUMPTIONS
• The contact resistances at all interfaces are ignored to figure out the performance enhancement of TE cooler
• The heat only flows through the element along the length direction of leg
• Heat loss by radiation and convection is neglected.
• The heat is considered to flow from the hot side and rejected to the cold side

OBJECTIVE
• The objective of this project is to calculate and determine the optimum leg length, and the number of legs in a confined
volume, to maximize the cooling capacity and corresponding COP.
• Fixed Boundary conditions
• Temperature at the hot junction of TEC (300k)
• Temperature at the cold junction of TEC (270k)
• Input Voltage(V)
• Lower and upper bound on leg length (L min and L max), adopted from the technological limitation in manufacturing .

• Variable conditions
• Length of legs (L)
• Cross-sectional area of legs (A)
• Number of legs (N)
Governing Equations

Governing Equations:

Governing Equations

Electric field E, electric current density j , temperature T, heat flux q, electric conductivity σ,
thermal conductivity κ, See beck coefficient S, and Nabla operator ∇.
• The Author has taken a thermoelectric cooler of p and n type of semi
conductor in which the hot and cold junctions are maintained at 300k
and 270 k. The semiconductors has a dimensions of Area =.25cm^2
and length L=1.05cm. Electrical conductivity of n-type and p-type
PbTe. The See beck coefficient is −187μV/K for the n-type material
and 187 μV/K for the p-type material. Thermal conductivity of n-type
and p-type material are same .0146w/cmK
Electrical conductivity of n-type and p-type Bi2Te3. The See beck coefficient is −170 μV/K for the n-type
material and 160 μV/K for the p-type material.
PARAMETERS THEORETICAL VALUES SIMULATION RESULT
LEG HEIGHT 1.05 1.05CM
COOPER THICKNESS .05CM .05CM
ALUMINA THICKNESS .05CM .05CM
INPUT VOLTAGE .10V .10V
COOLING CAPACITY .41W .39W
WORK INPUT 1.36W 1.36W
COP .31 .28
 % Deviation in results
During simulation what I found that the cooling capacity and COP value
are different from theoretical value ,there was a change of 5% in case of
(qc) and 9% in cop value
PARAMETRES VALUES
1 cm
LENGTH
COOPER THICKNESS .05cm
ALUMINA THICKNESS .05
INPUT VOLTAGE .1v
COOLING POWER 1.1w
WORK INPUT 1.32w
COP .83
 Material Properties
• Electrical conductivity of n-type and p-type PbTe. The See beck coefficient is −187μV/K for the n-type material and 187
μV/K for the p-type material .
PARAMETERS THEORETICAL VALUE SIMULATION RESULT
LEG LENGTH 1.05CM 1.05CM
COOPER THICKNESS .05CM .05CM
ALUMINA THICKNESS .05CM .05CM
INPUT VOLTAGE .10V .10V
COOLING CAPACITY .41W .73W
WORK INPUT 1.36W 1.32W
COP .31 .53
PARAMETRES VALUES
1.0cm
LENGTH
COOPER THICKNESS .05cm
ALUMINA THICKNESS .05cm
INPUT VOLTAGE .1v
COOLING POWER .76w
WORK INPUT 1.32w
COP .575
COOLING CAPACITY VS LEG HEIGHT
COP VS LEG HEIGHT
CONCLUSION
• I observe that the maximum cooling capacity and maximum coefficient of
performance all decrease with the increase of the leg height which says that there is
a inverse relation between cooling capacity and leg height
• In case of bismuth telluride lower cop was achieved at higher leg height and vice
versa but in case of lead telluride nearby value was achieved
• For both the cases with increase in temperature the thermal conductivity was
decreasing and after some time it started increasing
• By simulation (cooling effect)=.39 watt but theoretically it is .41watt
• The percentage change is nearly 5% for all the simulated results
 FUTURE WORK
• The objective will be to calculate and determine the optimum leg
length, the leg area and the number of legs in a confined volume, to
maximize the cooling capacity and corresponding COP by using
optimization Techniques.
REFERENCES

• Eckhard Müller*, 1, Steven Walczak2, and Wolfgang Seifert Optimization strategies for segmented Peltier
coolers
• Parameter optimization of thermoelectric modules using a genetic Algorithm (TU Dresden, Institute of Solid
Mechanics, 01062 Dresden, Germany)
• F. Ioffe, Semiconductor thermoelements and thermoelectric cooling (Info-Search Ltd., London, 1957).
H. J. Goldsmid, Electronic Refrigeration (Pion Ltd., London, 1986).
• C. A. Ball, W. A. Jesser, and J. R. Maddux, in: Proc. 14th Int. Conf. Thermoelectrics, St. Petersburg, Russia,
1995, p. 305.
• E. Müller, G. Karpinski, W. Seifert, and M. Ueltzen, in: Proc. VIth Europ. Workshop Thermoelectrics,
Freiburg,
• W. Seifert, M. Ueltzen, C. Strümpel, W. Heiliger, and E. Müller, in: Proc. 20th Int. Conf. Thermoelectrics
(ICT2001), Beijing, P.R. China (IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2002), p. 439.
• Gong T, Wu Y, Gao L, Zhang L, Li J, Ming T. Thermo-mechanical analysis on a compact thermoelectric
cooler.
• Fabián-Mijangos A, Min G, Alvarez-Quintana J. Enhanced performance thermoelectric cooler having
asymmetrical legs
• Dongxu J, Zhongbao W, Pou J, Mazzoni S, Rajoo S, Romagnoli A. Geometry optimization of thermoelectric
modules: simulation and experimental study. Energy Convers Manag
• Shen L, Zhang W, Liu G, Tu Z, Lu Q, Chen H, et al. Performance enhancement investigation of
thermoelectric cooler with segmented configuration
• Review of thermoelectric geometry and structure optimization for performance enhancement , Samson
Shittua Guiqiang Lia, Xudong Zhaoba
• Geometric optimization of thermoelectric coolers in a confined volume using genetic algorithms(Yi-Hsiang
Cheng *, Wei-Keng Lin)-Department of Engineering and System Science, National Tsing Hua University,
101, Sec. 2, Kuang Fu Road