Thermo-electro-mechanical refrigeration based on transient thermoelectric effects

Author

Miner, Andrew ; Majumdar, Arun ; Ghoshal, Uttam

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

Aug. 29 1999-Sept. 2 1999

Firstpage

27

Lastpage

30

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of a thermo-electromechanical cooler (TEMC), which modifies a traditional thermoelectric cooler (TEC) by using intermittent contact of a mechanical element synchronized with an applied pulsed current. Using Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/ as the thermoelectric material, it is predicted that the maximum temperature drop across a TEMC may be as much as 35 percent higher than that of a TEC in low heat flux applications. This effectively increases the figure of merit by a factor of 1.8.

Keywords

cooling; refrigeration; synchronisation; thermoelectric devices; transients; Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/; Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/ thermoelectric material; Peltier cooling effects; applied pulsed current; bulk Joule heating; intermittent contact; low heat flux applications; mechanical element; synchronized element; thermo-electro-mechanical refrigeration; thermo-electromechanical cooler; transient thermoelectric effects; Conducting materials; Electric resistance; Refrigeration; Resistance heating; Steady-state; Tellurium; Temperature; Thermal conductivity; Thermal resistance; Thermoelectricity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermoelectrics, 1999. Eighteenth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

ISSN

1094-2734

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5451-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICT.1999.843327

Filename

843327