Thermoelectric Cooler, Lumped Thermal System
Application ID: 75591
Thermoelectric coolers are widely used for electronics cooling in various application areas, ranging from consumer products to spacecraft design. The thermoelectric modules are a common application of thermoelectricity in cooling engineering. They consist of several thermoelectric legs sandwiched between two thermally conductive plates, one cold and one hot. The device that needs to be cooled down must be attached to the cold face.
This model covers the basic design of a single-stage thermoelectric cooler, modeled with a three-dimensional finite elements component and a zero-dimensional lumped thermal system. The three-dimensional model serves as a reference and results obtained with both models are compared in order to validate the lumped approach.
This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products:
however, additional products may be required to completely define and model it. Furthermore, this example may also be defined and modeled using components from the following product combinations:
- COMSOL Multiphysics® and
- Heat Transfer Module and
- either the AC/DC Module, MEMS Module, or Plasma Module
The combination of COMSOL® products required to model your application depends on several factors and may include boundary conditions, material properties, physics interfaces, and part libraries. Particular functionality may be common to several products. To determine the right combination of products for your modeling needs, review the Tabella delle Funzionalità and make use of a free evaluation license. The COMSOL Sales and Support teams are available for answering any questions you may have regarding this.