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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Finite Element Analysis of Thermoelectric Systems with Applications in Self Assembly and Haptics

McKnight, Patrick T. 29 October 2010 (has links)
Micro-scale self assembly is an attractive method for manufacturing sub-millimeter sized thermoelectric device parts. Challenges controlling assembly yield rates, however, have caused research to find novel ways to implement the process while still resulting in a working device. While a typical system uses single n-type and p-type material elements in series, one method used to increase the probability of a working device involves adding redundant parallel elements in clusters. The drawback to this technique is that thermal performance is affected in clusters which have missing elements. While one-dimensional modeling sufficiently describes overall performance in terms of average junction temperatures and net heat flux, it fails when a detailed thermal profile is needed for a non-homogeneous system. For this reason, a three-dimensional model was created to describe thermal performance using Ansys v12.1. From the results, local and net performance can be described to help in designing an acceptable self-assembled device. In addition, a haptic thermal display was designed using thermoelectric elements with the intention of testing the thermal grill illusion. The display consists of 5 electrically independent rows of thermoelectric elements which are controlled using pulse width modulating direct current motor controllers.

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