Experiment analysis and system design of PCM assisted thermoelectric radiant cooling panel

Abstract

This study proposes a phase change material for use in radiant cooling panels integrated with thermoelectric modules (PCM–TERCP) and experimentally evaluates its performance characteristics during the cooling process in design conditions. The PCM–TERCP was proposed as a concept to reduce operating energy and costs by using phase change material for thermal energy storage, which is the disadvantage of the conventional thermoelectric radiant cooling panel. Moreover, the proposed system can achieve an off-peak operation. The empirical models predict the available cooling capacity and power consumption of the panel during the melting and solidification period of the PCM under the given conditions and predict the duration of each operation mode. The experiment results show the 58 W/m2, 54 W/m2 cooling capacity, and show 5 h, 2 h of the average cooling duration under the active and passive cooling process. Finally, using the proposed models as objective functions in this study suggests the optimum thickness of the PCM layer. The optimum results were determined to be 6–8 mm when minimizing electric power consumption.