DESIGN OF SOLID STATE-BASED THERMOELECTRIC DEVICE FOR COOLING AND HEATING DRINKS IN A CAR

• Main Author: Abd Ghani, Ahmad Majdi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2006
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8394/1/2004%20-%20DESIGN%20OF%20SOLID%20STATE-BASED%20THERMOELECTRIC%20DEVICE%20FOR%20COOLING%20AND%20HEATING%20DRINKS%20IN%20A%20CAR.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8394/
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Petronas

The purpose of this project is to design a solid state based thermoelectric device for cooling and heating drinks in a car. The system will basically be able to cool down or heat up to a certain temperature by connecting the circuit to cigarette lighter as a power supply in a car. The scopes of study of this project are basically focused on three fields which are the Peltier device, the thermoelectric applications and the control circuit. A control circuit has been design for the purpose of cooling and heating as well as maintaining at certain desired temperature. The circuit consists of H-bridge circuit, PIC 16F877 microcontroller and temperature sensor. A prototype which is called cooler/heater made of Peltier module, heat sink and cooling fan has been constructed. A container which is made of material that has low thermal conductivity and properly sealed is chosen and modified to keep the temperature inside cold or hot. The project is able to cool down to 7°C and heat up to 65°C and maintain at that temperature for use in a car. The Peltier module surface took about 5.56 seconds to heat up to the expected temperature at 65°C and took 20.53 seconds to cool down to expected cooling temperature at 7°C. The air temperature inside the 360 ml container took about 60 minutes to heat up to the expected temperature at 65°C and 220 minutes to cool down to expected cooling temperature at 7°C.