During this week, our group decided on the project that we wanted to focus on and conducted market research to better understand the products available. We read up on cooling methods and in particular, the Peltier effect used in thermoelectric coolers.

Bing Hong and Deborah ran some simulations using COMSOL to try various set-ups involving one Peltier plate, two heat sinks and two fans, one set for each side of the Peltier plate. From the results, we understood that we needed pin heat sinks to maximise surface area of the heat sink in contact with the air and the amount of volumetric flow through the fan that would be optimum for heat dissipation. We also optimised the set-up of items to allow for maximum cooling of air flowing through the model.

Justin and Zhen Xuan headed down to the MnT lab to check the items that were already present in the MnT lab and discuss with Tony the feasibility of our idea.