respectively. The numerical calculations show
that the external heat transfers affect the performance of combined thermoelectric device
strongly. There are optimum allocations of the number of thermocouples and optimum
allocations of thermal conductance of heat exchangers corresponding to the maximum
cooling capacity and the maximum COP, respectively. When the total thermal conductance
of heat exchangers extends to infinity, the results of this paper approach the non-
equilibrium thermodynamic results obtained.