Thermoelectric thermal management system
OwnerDavid Hirshberginventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thermal management system for an object comprising: a plurality of thermoelectric elements and electricity transport medium. Heat energy that is generated or absorbed by the object is converted by some of said thermoelectric elements to electrical energy. This energy is transferred to some other of said thermoelectric elements, working in heat pumping mode, in order to realize a desired thermal distribution over said object. The thermal management system optionally comprises a controller that controls the mode of operation of the thermoelectric elements. Each thermoelectric element in any portion of time is configured to be in one of (1) an electricity generation mode, (2) a heat pumping mode, (3) a heat flow blocking mode or (4) a heat flow transferring mode.
Claims20
A thermal management system for an object comprising:
- (a) a plurality of thermoelectric elements;
- and
- (b) electricity transport medium;
- wherein a portion of the heat energy that is generated or absorbed by said object is converted by some of said thermoelectric elements, working in electricity generation mode, to electrical energy, and said electrical energy is transferred by said electricity transport medium to some other of said thermoelectric elements, working in heat pumping mode, in order to realize a desired thermal distribution over said object.
A method for thermal management of an object comprising:
- generating electrical energy from heat energy that is generated or absorbed by said object using one or more first thermoelectric elements;
- transferring said generated electrical energy by an electricity transport medium to one or more second thermoelectric elements;
- wherein the combined resulted heat energy flows and electrical energy flows realize a desired thermal distribution over said object.
An integrated circuit for thermal management system comprising a semiconductor die, the die circuitry comprises:
- one or more thermoelectric element drivers;
- and
- energy transfer backbone,
- wherein the one or more thermoelectric element drivers are configured to transfer electrical energy to thermoelectric elements or to receive electrical energy from thermoelectric elements, and the energy transfer backbone is an electricity transport medium that transfer electrical energy between said one or more thermoelectric element drivers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.