Effect Of Position and Design Parameters of a Fan-Cooled Cold Side Heat  Sink of a Thermoelectric Cooling-Module on The Performance of a Hybrid  Refrigerator

Yasser Abdulrazak Alghanima; Osama Mesalhy; Ahmed Farouk Abdel Gawad

Authors

Yasser Abdulrazak Alghanima Mechanical and Electrical Faculty, Alfurat University, Deir Ezzor, Syria
Osama Mesalhy Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, 44519, Egypt
Ahmed Farouk Abdel Gawad Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, 44519, Egypt

Keywords:

CFD analysis, hybrid householdrefrigerator, vapor-compression cooling, thermoelectric cooling, fan direction, number of fins

Abstract

This paper presents a CFD and experimental study of the thermal behavior of the thermoelectric-compartment in a hybrid household-refrigerator that combines thermoelectric and vapor-compression technologies. The hybrid refrigerator has three compartments. One of them is driven by a thermoelectric cooling system, which was made of one Peltier module and two fan-cooled heat sinks mounted on the hot and cold sides. The simulation results were compared with experimental measurements and showed a good agreement. The performance of the thermoelectric refrigerator was tested with changing the pushing direction. Two pushing directions for the fan were examined. In the first one (direction-I), the fan was fixed such that it sucked the air beside the cold heat sink. While in the second direction (direction-II), the fan was assumed to be flipped to push the air over the cold-side heat sink. The results showed that the second fan direction (direction-II) is more effective for heat transfer mechanism between the cold-side heat sink and the inside air of the thermoelectric?compartment.