Research Information System
ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT, vol.36, no.12, pp.1197-1200, 1995 (SCI-Expanded)
Heat transfer at a finite rate and electrical resistive losses are necessarily irreversible processes and unavoidable in a thermoelectric device. It is shown that the internal and exernal irreversibilities in a thermoelectric refrigerator may be characterized by a single parameter, named the device-design parameter. The presence of this parameter in the equations for the refrigeration effect and the maximum input power, shows that a real refrigerator has a smaller cooling capacity and needs more input power than an ideal refrigerator.