Preliminary study of the thermoelectric cooler and heat pipe application for the cooling system in cabin pickup car

Abstract

Abstract Car cooling systems are essential equipment to make passengers comfortable, but their energy consumption is very high. Thermoelectric technology has been widely applied as a cooler in many applications, but its use as a car cooler has not been widely used. This research aims to conduct a preliminary study using thermoelectric coolers (TEC) as alternative coolers in pickup cars and to investigate the effect of thermoelectric module and heat exchanger configurations on cooling systems performance. A-TEC cooling system usually uses conventional heat sinks on the cold side and hot side of the TEC. In this study, heat pipes are used as heat exchangers on the hot side of TEC to improve its performance. The cooling system consists of 2 units installed at the rear of the pickup car cabin. Tests were varied using 2 TEC modules arranged in series and 4 TECs arranged in parallel thermal and electrical series. The results showed that using two cooling system units consisting of four TEC modules equipped with heat pipes was able to cool the temperature of the pickup car cabin at 27.4 °C and obtained the highest COP value of 1.16. It shows heat pipes can enhance TEC cooling system performance, producing lower cabin temperatures than conventional heat sinks.