Methodological Considerations of Using Thermoelectrics with Fin Heat Sinks for Cooling Applications

An experimental investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of a thermoelectric (TE) module fitted to a conventional fin heat sink with a similar sized heat source. Experiments were conducted with power inputs at 10 W and 20 W under natural convection (NC) and forced convection (FC) air...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kok Seng Ong, Choon Foong Tan, Koon Chun Lai
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017-02-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/2/62
Description
Summary:An experimental investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of a thermoelectric (TE) module fitted to a conventional fin heat sink with a similar sized heat source. Experiments were conducted with power inputs at 10 W and 20 W under natural convection (NC) and forced convection (FC) air cooling. The results showed that the use of the TE module is not effective under the NC cooling mode. With the present TE module employed, under FC cooling at 20 W, the applied voltage (Vte) to the TE module should be >4 V and at 10 W, it should be >1 V. A simple iterative method of predicting the hot side temperature of the TE module was presented. Agreement between predicted and experimental values was better than 2%.
ISSN:2076-3417