Numerical simulation of thermoelectric heat transfer management

Abstract

The contemporary, ever increasing power density electronics lead to more and more compact packaging for which thermal management becomes a key issue. Therefore using adequate, efficient heat removal solutions is a constant concern. Along this line, due to their advantages, there is a growing interest in utilizing solid state semiconductor devices to remove the heat and keep the electronic systems and equipment within controllable, thermally safe limits. This paper presents a mathematical model -based on the gradient (temperature, electric potential) to fluxes (heat flux and current density) relations and on the specific constitutive (material) laws -and its numerical, finite element (FEM) implementation to simulate the underlying, multiphysics processes in a TEC Peltier device. The study is aimed to provide a numerical simulation approach, of controllable accuracy, usable in the thermal design of integrated circuits in lieu of the order of magnitude analytical solutions to the heat transfer problem.

Experimenting and Simulating Thermoelectric Cooling of an LED Module

“…COP gives a measure of how much heat can be absorbed on the cool side at certain temperature difference !T and electric current I. Material characteristics are temperature dependent [7]. The review study of bismuth telluride [2] shows that maximum ZT can be even 1.5 for p-type and 1.2 for n-type material, and the maximum is reached at elevated temperatures.…”