Experimental study on transient cooling characteristics of a realistic thermoelectric module under a current pulse operation

This paper presents an experimental investigation on cooling characteristics of a realistic thermoelectric module (TEM) that operates under single and continuous square current pulse. The experimental system is built and the related study is performed. A cooling temperature enhancement of 3.0 °C relative to steady current operation on a realistic TEM is demonstrated. Further experimental data reveal that there exists an optimum initial steady current which provides the maximum cooling temperature enhancement in the current pulse operation. In addition, the value of the supercooling and the temperature overshoot always stay close. Moreover, continuous temperature enhancement in each current pulse is achieved on a realistic TEM operated with continuous current pulses. Cooling temperature in each current pulse shows an increasing trend similar to that of a first order step response. The cooling characteristics under different cooling loads are quite similar, except for the different initial temperatures.