An Experimental Study on the Performance Evaluation and Thermodynamic Modeling of a Thermoelectric Cooler Combined with Two Heatsinks

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the performance of a one-stage thermoelectric cooler using mathematical and thermodynamic modeling and proposing a new correlation for performance evaluation of a thermoelectric cooler combined with two heatsinks. Validating the results of the proposed correlation, a series of experiments have been carried out on the same system. The system consists of a thermoelectric cooler and a heatsink on each side. Deriving the governing equations of the system, the effects of changing the voltage and the thermal resistance of the cold- and hot-side heatsink on cooling power, the cold-side temperature of thermoelectric, and the coefficient of performance of the system have been investigated. The results indicated that changes in voltage have a considerable effect on the performance of the system. Moreover, the maximum cooling power of the system takes place at the voltage of 14 V, which is the optimum voltage of the system. Furthermore, decreasing the thermal resistance of the hot-side heatsink leads to increasing the cooling power and the cold-side temperature of the thermoelectric cooler. On the other hand, increasing the thermal resistance of the cold-side heatsink leads to decreasing the cooling power of the system.