ME: 391 Integrated

Design and Manufacturing

Project Code – IDMP07
Project Title: Design of Thermoelectric Air Conditioner

Group Members:
Akash Keshav Singh
Harsh Gupta Mentors:
Ronak Khandelwal Prof. Ramakrishnan
Rounak Mehta Prof. Atul Bhargav
Problem Statement
• At present, coolers and conventional air conditioners are the only alternatives
available in the market which serve the purpose of providing comfort during hot
days

• Coolers are highly subjective to environmental conditions and air conditioners are
expensive as well as have a high electricity consumption

• This creates a need for a robust and affordable cooling device which can serve
the requirements for semi urban areas as well as for lower middle classes during
the summer months

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Objective:
• To develop a robust as well as an economical cooling device which can counter
the drawbacks of both coolers and air conditioners

Motivation
• Currently, the market size of air coolers is estimated to be around Rs. 1000 crore
and growing at a strong 30 percent rate per annum1

• There exists a gap between coolers and air conditioners which we wish to bridge

Reference: http://www.aceupdatemagazine.com/Article.php?ItemId=1852

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Project Title: IDMP07 4
 Work Done Previous Semester
• Estimation of the cooling load
• Calculation of Chotukool performance
• Identification of existing products
• Identification and analysis of Peltier element as a solution
• Design of thermoelectric cooler

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Estimation of the cooling load

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Assumptions
A room of height :10ft Roof’s dimensions :13 x 8 ft
Outside Temperature :104oF (40oC) Room Temperature :80oF (30oC)
Relative Humidity :50 percent Window area :10 % of the wall area
Ventilation :20 cfm/person Occupancy :1 persons
Appliances :1 Computer

Results
• Sensible cooling load = 922.4W
• Latent load = 196.8W
• Total Cooling Load = 1118.8W

Project Title: IDMP07 7

 Calculation Table
Heat Load due to Column1 CLTD, SCL, Wattage, CFM per person CLTDc,sc, ΔT,ΔW, Load per Computer Heat Load(in BTU/hr) Heat Load(in BTU/hr)2
CLTD CLTDc Sensible Load Latent Load
Roof Overall 19.2 18.3 - 0.0
Walls Zone 1 5.7 4.8 209.7 0.0
Zone 2 13.3 12.4 614.0 0.0
Zone 3 3.9 3.0 156.7 0.0
Zone 4 5.1 4.2 292.5 0.0
Zone 5 0.0 0.0 255.9 0.0
Window Conduction
5.0 4.1 25.2 0.0
Radiation SCL SC
78.9 0.7 2.5 0.0
Person No of person - - 187.7
1 255.9
Lights No. of lights Wattage CLF
1 50.0 0.9 149.6 0.0
Ventilation No. of person CFM per person temp diff
1 20.0 13.0 505.4 0.0
Latent Heat delta W
0.0 0.0 484.0
Computer No. of PCs Sensible Load per computer
1 680.0 680.0 0.0
Total(in BTU/hr) 3147.5 671.7
in Watts 922.4 196.8

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Proposed Technology

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Peltier Element
• The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion
of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa. A
thermoelectric device creates voltage when there is a different
temperature on each side. Conversely, when a voltage is applied to it,
it creates a temperature difference.

Project Title: IDMP07 10

Chotukool Images

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Calculation of cooling load - Chotukool
Considerations

• Dimensions of ChotuKool - 56 cm x 60 cm x 42 cm
• Insulating material is taken to be insulation foam
• Insulation thickness of side walls = 6 cm
• Insulation thickness of top and bottom wall = 8 cm
• Thermal Conductivity (k) of foam = 0.02 W / m - K
• Outside Temperature = 35 oC
• Inside Temperature = 15 oC
• Convective heat transfer coefficient of air = 20 W / m2 - K
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Calculations
Rate of heat transfer
• Q = Q1 + Q2
• Q1 is due to side walls
• Q2 is due to upper and lower wall

A (total area) ∗ ΔT 2 ∗ A (upper wall) ∗ ΔT

Q1 = 1 𝐿 1 Q2 = 1 𝐿 1
+ + + +
ℎ 𝑘 ℎ ℎ 𝑘 ℎ

Q1 = 7.37 W Q2 = 2.45 W
Q = Q1 + Q2 = 9.82 W
Project Title: IDMP07 13
Challenges
• As can be seen, the Chotukool has a cooling load of only 10 W,
whereas we wish to cool a room whose heating load is 1 KW.

• This will depend on two factors:

• More number of Peltier elements
• Better use of each Peltier element ~ we need to make sure we take more heat
out of the system by each Peltier element so as to be able to take out a total
of 1 KW of the entire system.

Project Title: IDMP07 14

Proposed Solution

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Basic Concept
• Cool fluid using Peltier
• Pass air through copper tubes containing cold fluid, which will be
accomplished by use of a wall fan

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How to cool fluid using Peltier elements?

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How to cool fluid using Peltier elements?
• We will be using a concept similar to a commercially available product by
Top Cool Technology (TCT), which can take 280 watts out of the system with
4 Peltier elements.

• The cold sides of 16 Peltier elements will be mounted on a plate and water
will be allowed to run over the plate.

• This cold fluid will be then passed through copper pipes and air will be
passed through this grid to cool the room.

• The hot side of the Peltier elements will be connected to a heat sink and air
will be passed through it, after which it will be released in the atmosphere.

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Proposed Solution

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Work done this semester

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Workflow
• We identified the various parts of the system and focused on each
individually:
• Effective Heat dissipation of heat from hot side of Peltier
• Heat transfer from Peltier to water
• Heat transfer from cold water to Air
• After appropriate components were identified for the above tasks, a
final prototype was constructed.

Project Title: IDMP07 21

Experiment - I
• An insulated container was filled
with water. The metal block was
placed in contact with the cold side A
of the Peltier and immersed in the
water.
B
C
• A system of heat pipes was used as D
a heat sink to dissipate heat.

• A thermocouple was used to

calculate the drop in temperature of
the water. A Heat Pipes
B Insulated Enclosure
• Observed Cooling Power = 9.4 W C Peltier Element
D Thermocouple
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Experiment - II
• Observed cooling power in the experiment 1
was less than expected.
• We decided to repeat the experiment
replacing the heat pipes with a different heat
sink.
• Observed Cooling Power = 16 W
• The greater the heat removed from the hot
side, the greater the cooling power of the
Peltier. This heat sink was chosen for further
prototypes.
Project Title: IDMP07 23
Alternatives – Dyson Fan
• Initially, it was proposed that copper tubes containing the
cold water be mounted on the fan.

• By now, we had realized that the proposed solution would

not be able to fulfill the demands we had set and hence
started looking at the Dyson Fan as an alternative.

• The Dyson fan would offer a concentrated flow of air which

would allow better heat exchange as compared to the
earlier solution.

• However, as the flow rate of the Dyson fan is significantly

high, the Peltier element will not be efficient even though
the area is less

• Spiral Heat Exchangers

Project Title: IDMP07 24

Water – Peltier Heat Transfer
• The earlier proposed method to cool water was
complex and difficult the conceptualize and
manufacture. It would also push up costs.

• Hence, a waterblock, an existing device used to

dissipate heat from motherboards and graphic
cards in CPUs was used for this purpose.

• It consists of a fine network of copper tubes to

increase surface area and is directly attached to
the cold side of the Peltier.

Project Title: IDMP07 25

Final Prototype
• In light of the observations from experiments, the objectives were
redefined to reduce the scale of the product.

• A one-eighth model of the faculty cabin was chosen as the target heat
load.

• The cooler was repositioned as a personal cooler instead of cooling

the entire cabin.

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Final Prototype

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Components
Sr. No. Item Image Specifications
1. Peltier Element Voltage : 12V
Imax (A) : 6A
Dimensions : 40mm x 40mm x 3.6mm

2. Water Block Material: Brass upper cover Copper

baseboard
Size: 47x42x32mm

3. DC-Pump Voltage:12V DC
Current: 1.2A
Flow: 600l/h

4. Radiator Size: 269x120x36mm

Material: Aluminium

5. Reservoir Capacity:500ml

28
 Performance
• The final prototype was unable to provide the required cooling. This is due to:
• The waterblock prrovided insufficient contact area for the Peltier to cool the wate
• Water has a high heat capacity and 30W of cooling power isn't sufficient to cool the
system as 125W of heat would be entering it.
• Excessive water was present in the loop which actually added to the cooling
requirement.
• More effective heat dissipation is required. If the hot side reaches around 80°C then
the cool side would be at 35°C, causing the system to fail.
• Our initial concept was derived from the success of the Chotukool and the product
developed by Top Cool Technology (TCT) . However, we failed to realise that
Chotukool does not have such a high constant heat load while the device developed
by TCT was able to transfer heat efficiently.

Project Title: IDMP07 29

Conclusions and Learning Outcomes
• The use of a Peltier Element in a commercial household cooling device requires
extremely efficient heat transfer devices. Further, a large number of Peltiers
would be required to provide sufficient cooling for any practical application. This
would be expensive.
• We understood the design and working of HVAC systems.
• Thorough diligence and experiments should have been conducted on the Peltier
to test its maximum performance.
• We learnt that using one product, the TCT device, as a proof of concept was a
flawed idea as it was difficult to exactly replicate the efficiency of their system.

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Thank You

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