Abstract
•The optimum design of automotive thermoelectric AC system is proposed.•It is optimized by combining the thermal isolation and the dimensionless methods.•An experiment is conducted to validate the analytical design.
The current project is discussing the optimization of counter flow air-to-air thermoelectric air conditioners (TEAC) system. Previous work showed an analytical model with experimental validation of a unit cell of TEAC system. However, the focus of this work is to simulate the optimum design of a whole TEAC system from given inlet parameters (i.e., hot and cold air mass flow rates and ambient temperatures). The analytical model was built by combining an optimal design method with dimensional analysis, which was recently developed, and the thermal isolation method in order to optimize the thermoelectric parameters (i.e., electrical current supplied and the number of thermocouples or the geometric factor, simultaneously). Moreover, based on the designed model, an experiment was conducted in order to study the accuracy of the analytical model. Even though the analytical model was built based on the thermoelectric ideal equations, it shows a good agreement with the experiment. This agreement was mainly a result of the use of the thermoelectric effective material properties which are obtained from the measured maximum thermoelectric module parameters. Since the experiment validate the analytical model, this model provides uncomplicated method to study the optimum design at given inputs.