Abstract
The thermoelectric air conditioning system (TE-AC) is a small, noiseless alternative to standard vapor compression refrigeration (VCR) systems. The cooling characteristics of a TE-AC system operating under two conditions, i.e., steady current and current pulses, are investigated in this study. This system consists of three thermoelectric modules, a heat sink, and an air circulation fan. The result shows that maximum temperature reduction in cooling side of TE-AC system was achieved at 6 A input current under steady state operation. The optimum performance of the TE-AC system under steady state operation depends upon the combined effect of the cooling load, Joule, Fourier, and Peltier heat. In TE-AC pulse operation, both current width and cooling load applied on the cold side of the thermoelectric module (TEMs) play an important role in achieving optimum cooling performance of the system. When normal input current operation (i.e., no current pulse) was compared to pulse-operated TE-AC system operation, it was found that pulse operation provides an additional average temperature reduction of 3–4 °C on the cold side of TEMs. Although on the hot side, it maintains a temperature in the range of 18 °C to 24 °C to reduce overshoot heat flux. The duration of operation is also important in determining pulse width and pulse amplitude. Minimum and overshoot peak temperature rises during each cycle for longer run operation. In the TE-AC system, the accumulated Joule heat during a current pulse frequently causes a temperature overshoot, which lasts much longer. As a result, the next current pulse was not released until the temperature of TE was restored to its initial value.
Highlights
Thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is a device that uses the Peltier effect to convert electrical energy to heat and cooling energy [1]
During pulse operation, the peak overshoot and minimum temperature of the Figures 11 and 12, the 9 s current width is insufficient to enable adequate heat dissipation, cold side of TEMs increased as the experiment progressed for all cooling loads; and increasing cooling load causes additional Joule heating on the cold side of the TEMs
The combined action of the Peltier heat, cooling load, Fourier heat, and Joule heat, all of which operate simultaneously during steady-state operation, determines the optimum performance of the cold side temperature of TEMs; During pulse operation, the peak overshoot and minimum temperature of the cold side of TEMs increased as the experiment progressed for all cooling loads; As the experiment progresses, two factors contribute to the increase in peak overshoot and minimum temperature of the cold side of TEMs
Summary
Thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is a device that uses the Peltier effect to convert electrical energy to heat and cooling energy [1]. To increase the coefficient of performance (COP) of TEM used in building cooling applications, researchers combined many methods, such as solar powered TEM [11,12], evaporative cooling [13,14], and thermal energy storage [15,16]. Integration of these additional system increases complexity and overall cost of the configuration [17]
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