Geometry and structure optimization of leg of annular thermoelectric cooler
Annular thermoelectric refrigerator can eliminate the thermal contact resistance caused by the geometric mismatch of the flat plate thermoelectric refrigerator when cooling the round-shaped heat source.In this paper,three-dimensional finite element method was used to simulate the annular thermoelectric cooler with variable shape legs,and the effects of leg shape,vol-ume,current,ring angle ratio coefficient and height on refrigeration performance were investigated.The results show that the maximum temperature differences of X and Y ring legs are 0.71%and 0.74%higher than that of traditional trapezoid,and ap-proximately 25%and 38%of the thermoelectric material can be conserved.Under the same volume,the optimized structure can reduce the cold end temperature by 2.5 K.In addition,when the ring angle proportion coefficient θr decreases from 1 to 0.15 and the leg height increases from 1 mm to 2 mm,the refrigeration performance is increased by 0.66%and 0.72%,respectively.