Performance Study of the Thermoelectric Personal Cooler under Different Ambient Temperatures

Abstract

In this study, a Thermo Electric Cooler (TEC) was manufactured and investigated experimentally. The heat sink, geometry, fin number, fin length, and heat sink dimensions are studied theoretically. The performance of the TEC is studied under three variables, namely: the THC power, airspeed, and ambient temperature. Two heat sinks are used for each Peltier module. The first one is for the cooling side, while the second one is for the hot side. In the theoretical part, the geometry and the dimensions of the heat sink are studied using one-dimensional heat transfer equations, as well as a theoretical simulation of the performance of a single Peltier module is achieved. The results show that the cooling capacity increases with the increase in airspeed, and the maximum cooling capacity was 180 W at an airspeed of 4 m/s and TEC power of 300 W. The maximum figure of merit of the TEC is about 0.23 when the TEC power is 350 W, at 4 m/s airspeed and an ambient temperature of 43℃. The theoretical results showed that the number of fins affected the total sink thermal resistance and that thermal resistance reduced sharply from 6.5 to about 2 m2 K/W when the fin number increased to 6. When the TEC power is 350 W, the airspeed is 4 m/s, and the ambient temperature is 28℃, the maximum TEC efficiency is 0.5%. Finally, the comparison between the current work and the other works shows the same trends in the variables under comparison.