Analysis of Using a Thermoelectric Module for Power Electronics Cooling

This paper aims to develop a PLECS equivalent circuit of a thermoelectric module to be used in power electronics cooling applications. The proposed model is built using elements from the PLECS thermal model block-set. To test tis, a resistive c device producing losses is mounted on a heatsink with a cooling fan that can also be interfaced with the thermoelectric module allowing for a controlled heat loss generated to be processed by this cooling system and assess its cooling performance. The effectiveness of the cooling of this setup is simulated in three conditions: under passive cooling, active (fan) cooling without the Peltier and active (fan) cooling with Peltier. A DC/DC boost converter is simulated with comparisons in different cases. This showed that based on active cooling with Peltier, size of the converter magnetics and heatsink can be reduced. Experimental results are shown to validate the simulation.