High accuracy testbed for thermoelectric module characterization

Energy Conversion and Management, vol. 223, pp. 113325

Abstract

In this paper, we present an improved version of the unified method (UM) for thermo-electric modules (TEM) characterization with the aim to reduce the overall parameters uncertainty. The parameters that make up the commonly accepted figure of merit Z or z T ¯ are mainly affected by temperature related uncertainty, which also significantly limit the precision of the test conditions and thus the reliability of derived models. To overcome these limitations, we conceived a novel and simplified measurement setup that relies at the same time on thermistor technology rather than thermocouple and on a lower number of required components. The improved setup, exploits a solid calibration procedure to reduce the uncertainty in temperature measurements from 1.4 °C typical of a J-type thermocouple (Class 1 IEC-EN 60584-2) to 0.027 °C with calibrated thermistors , leading to a previously unachievable millidegree-precision temperature control and to an uncertainty drop of two orders of magnitude in all the temperature-derived measurements. Such improvement has a direct feedback on both the α S and Θ , leading to a drop of a least one order of magnitude for a ΔT of 3 °C and more than 44 times for the latter at 30 °C. As result, the figure of merit z T ¯ can now be determined with an uncertainty equal to 0.58%.

Authors 3

1. Carlo Guarnieri Calò Carducci Aachen Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems E.ON Energy Research Center

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Maurizio Spadavecchia corresponding

   Polytechnic University of Bari

   Affiliation as printed

   Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell’Informazione, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

   Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

3. Filippo Attivissimo

   Polytechnic University of Bari

   Affiliation as printed

   Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell’Informazione, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

   Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy