Experimenting and Simulating Thermoelectric Cooling of an LED Module

Abstract

-Use of a thermoelectric component (TEC) for an LED module cooling will be studied. The issue will be approached by revealing the operation of a thermoelectric component known also as Peltier element, and the main equations describing its behaviour. An experimental setup including an LED module, a TEC, an heatsink and a fan will be build. Heat dissipation and the electrical performance measurements of the hole experimental setup will be conducted. The benefits and the limitations of TEC used in cooling, will be revealed. Cooling effect versus used electrical power will be studied. 3D thermal simulations for the experimental setup using a FEM simulation software will be presented. Alternatively, a standard circuit simulator will be used. A spice model, which imports TEC's parameters from the data sheet, will be developed. The spice simulation results are compared with the experimental results.

A Transient Modeling of the Thermoelectric Generators for Application in Wireless Sensor Network Nodes

“…A methodology for extraction of the temperature-dependent parameters of a TEG by the voltage, current and temperature measurements is presented in [27]. The SPICE TEG models for LED driver, self-powered wearable electronic devices and sanitary applications are presented in [28][29][30]. The nonlinear heat diffusion equations in TEG are solved and the lumped parameter electrical model is proposed in [31].…”

“…The contributions of the Seebeck, Joule and Peltier effect to the generated voltage and the heat rates absorbed or released at the junctions of the TEG are included in SPICE models via controlled voltage and current sources. Overall, equivalent circuits developed for SPICE-like simulators presented in [28][29][30] often can be used for the design of the complex systems in a simpler way then analytical models proposed in [31,37,38].…”