Numerical Simulation Of The Effect Of Thermoelectric Coolers Performance

Semiconductor refrigeration technology is a kind of solid-state refrigeration technology.It can realize refrigeration and heating after DC current is put in.It can also control temperature accurately in a certain range.Because it does not need refrigerants,it is of great significance to protect the ozone layer and mitigate the greenhouse effect.In this paper,a parametric model for a series of commercial semiconductor refrigeration devices is established,and the accuracy of the model is verified by comparing with the literature.Based on this model,the influence of structure size and input power of semiconductor thermoelectric elements on device performance is analyzed.It is pointed out that the aspect length ratio of the component has no significant effect on the maximum temperature difference and refrigeration coefficient,but has a great influence on the maximum refrigeration capacity.At the same time,it is found that the heat dissipation cost of high-power devices will be very high.In this paper,the performance curves of TEC1-12706 device at 27~50℃ hot surface temperature are given.The refrigeration capacity and COP of the device can be quickly obtained from the performance curves by necessary measurements.It is also pointed out that the ambient temperature has a significant influence on the performance of the device.The simulation models of semiconductor refrigeration devices of TEC1-12706,TEC1-12704 and TEC1-12703 are also established in this paper,and their performance changes are analyzed when the heat dissipation conditions at the hot side are poor.It is found that when the heat dissipation condition of the hot side of TEC is limited,the heat of the hot side of the device can not be transferred to the environment quickly and timely,which results in the increase of the temperature of the hot side and the significant decrease of performance.The larger the power is,the more significant the influence is.Although the power of TEC1-12706 is greater than that of TEC1-12704 and TEC1-12703,the refrigeration capacity and COP are lower than them under the same conditions.Therefore,in the design of semiconductor refrigeration system,if the heat dissipation conditions are limited,it is more appropriate to select low-power devices.Properly reducing the input power of the device can greatly improve the performance of the device,but the performance of the device with low-power is still better than that of the device with high-power.If the device is used under the condition of higher cold side temperature,although the heat dissipation condition is limited,the performance difference of each type of device is not obvious.If the heat dissipation condition can be improved,the high-power device will have more performance advantages.However,it should be noted that the hot side temperature is easy to be too high at this time,which affects the service life of the device and even burns down the device.If the input power of the high-power device is reduced properly,its refrigeration performance will be better than that of the low-power device.Therefore,under this refrigeration condition,the better refrigeration performance can be obtained by properly reducing the input power of high-power devices.