FEA for steady-state thermal performance of PCR thermal-cycler based on thermoelectric cooler

摘要

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology is a method for amplifying a specific target DNA sequence in vitro; thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is used in thermal-cycler system to implement periodic heating and cooling. Finite element models of multi-stage TEC and PCR thermal-cycler system based on TEC were established with ANSYS Workbench 12.0 thermal-electric coupled-field analysis elements. The steady-state thermal performances of TEC XLT2389 and thermal-cycler system with different driving currents were analyzed by this model. The simulation results indicated that the system steady-state temperature distribution was asymmetry for the energy loss on the sample block side surface; the system should work on a preferable driving current to achieve the optimal cooling ability.