Experimental analysis and design of hydraulic thermoelectric radiant cooling panel

Abstract

Thermoelectric technology has developed as a substitute for existing refrigerants in heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration(HVAC&R) system applications for building decarbonization. Hydraulic thermoelectric radiant cooling panel operated based on the Peltier effect is one of the best way to alternate conventional cooling panels using a chiller with refrigerators. However, there are limitations to apply to building energy simulation and performance evaluation because there are few guidelines and no standard model of a water-cooled thermoelectric radiant cooling panel. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to investigate desirable flow rate and temperature of cooling water which is produced by free cooling systems to obtain valid cooling performance and power consumption of the thermoelectric radiant cooling panel. A thermoelectric radiant cooling panel was constructed and tested under a controlled laboratory environment by using the developed mock-up models based on the previous studies. The tested thermoelectric radiant cooling panel was made of aluminium panel with four thermoelectric modules installed on the top side of the panel, and a water blocks were attached on the hot side of thermoelectric module to release heat to water through the water blocks. In this case, a quarter of each thermoelectric module is set up as effective area to analyze the cooling performance of one thermoelectric module. From the experimental analysis, the cooling capacity of the thermoelectric radiant cooling panel model was in reasonable agreement with the measured flow rate and temperature of cooling water through water blocks according to the previous studies. In addition, the parametric experiment was conducted to validate empirical model for evaluating the effects of design factors on the cooling performance of the thermoelectric radiant cooling panel. The results showed that the temperature of cooling water as heat removal factor to release heat from hot side of the thermoelectric modules was the main design variables to be calculated the cooling performance and power consumption of the thermoelectric radiant cooling panel. On the other hand, the flow rate of cooling water had a relatively less effect rather than the temperature of cooling water.