Development of a multi-vendor software to size and select TEC

The task of finding suitable commercial thermoelectric coolers (TECs) and determining their configurations in the cooling system designs can be a difficult and cumbersome iterative process due to the varieties of product ranges available from different vendors. This paper presents the development of a computer-aided tool, which is interactive and platform-independent, to assist the designers in the search for appropriate TECs from different manufacturers. Based on the user design specifications, the software can estimate the required heat load, determine the TEC requirements, search for appropriate TECs from various vendors, and analyze the thermal performances of the cooling system designs using different selected TECs. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.