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

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.