Thermo – Hydraulic Performance Analysis of a Plate Finned Heat Sink for Thermoelectric Cooling Box Applications

In this study, we investigated the fluid flow and thermal characteristics of an air-cooled parallel plate-fin heat sink as the external part of a refrigeration system. This system is based on a commercial TEC1-12706 thermoelectric module and a cooling box made from expanded polystyrene with air as the load medium. We developed the cooling tests under forced–air convection, with three different fans used for the ventilation of this external heat sink. The entropy generation rate was evaluated here for each of the fan/heat sink couples. We established the amount of heat transfer and fluid friction losses for each of the cases investigated, in direct correlation with the heat dissipation rates and thermal resistances at different sink to ambient temperature gradients and total drag force of airflow through the heat sink fins.