CFD Modeling of Thermoelectric Air Duct System for Cooling of Building Envelope

A multi-stage of thermoelectric modules is used in an air duct as a cooling system. The ThermoElectric Air Duct (TE-AD) system is installed with 24 ThermoElectric Modules (TEMs) installed with heat sink, cold plate and exhaust fan for air circulation. To simplify the TE-AD system, a three-dimensional model is proposed and implemented in a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation environment (FLUENT). An analysis of results, obtained in the experimental study of the TE-AD system for cooling of building envelope, shows that temperature gradient of 3.0-5.3°C between interior and the exterior of the building envelope was achieved. The current supplied to the TEMs are constant while the air flow rate is varied to investigate the factor on the performance of the thermoelectric. Using the TE-AD simulation model, it can be implemented to various CFD models of heat sources to predict the system performance for optimization.