KR20180072079A - Heating and Cooling Device Using Thermoelectric Device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a heating and cooling apparatus using a thermoelectric element comprising: the thermoelectric element (140) having a cooling or heat radiating function depending on a voltage application direction; an inner head exchange means (131) installed on one surface of the thermoelectric element (140); an outer heat exchange means (132) installed on the other surface of the thermoelectric element (140); an inner fan (121) to supply air to the inner heat exchange means (131); an outer fan (122) to supply air to the outer heat exchange means (132); and a control unit (430) to control a driving speed of the inner and outer fans (121, 122), and cooling and heating temperatures. Accordingly, the control unit (430) controls the driving speed of the inner and outer fans (121, 122), thereby controlling the cooling and heating temperatures without controlling voltage supplied to the thermoelectric element.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a heating and cooling device using a thermoelectric device,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a cooling and heating apparatus, and more particularly, to a cooling and heating apparatus capable of simultaneously obtaining cooling and heating effects by using a thermoelectric effect of a thermoelectric element.

A thermoelectric device, in particular a Peltier device, means a device in which an endothermic phenomenon occurs on one side and a heat phenomenon occurs on the other side when a potential difference is applied to both sides of the device. 1, a p-type semiconductor and an n-type semiconductor are disposed between a pair of ceramic plates arranged in parallel through a conductive metal, and a potential difference is applied to the upper conductive metal And connected to an external power source.

The cooling or heating performance of the thermoelectric element is proportional to the magnitude of the applied current. If the direction of the applied current is changed, the region where the heat generation phenomenon occurs and the region where the endothermic phenomenon occurs may be reversed. Therefore, In the air conditioner of the present invention.

2, it is assumed that a cold-cooling plate 40 and a heat-radiating plate 50 are attached to both sides of a thermoelectric element, and fans 93, 94 Cooling apparatus for absorbing the ambient heat on the side of the air cooling plate 40 and releasing heat to the periphery through the heat radiation plate 50 is disclosed in Patent Document 1.

In such a heating / cooling apparatus, the control of the cooling / heating temperature is usually performed by adjusting the magnitude or amount of the voltage applied to the thermoelectric element. However, since the performance of the thermoelectric element is influenced not only by the amount of current but also by the ambient temperature, that is, it is influenced by the wind speed by driving the fan, it is not easy to precisely control the wind speed (air volume) .

Public Utility Model Publication No. 1998-016834 (published Jun. 25, 1998) Patent Registration No. 10-1020543 (issued March 3, 2011)

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a temperature and wind speed control method of an air conditioner capable of solving the technical problems described above. Particularly, the inventor of the present invention has found that, in controlling the temperature and the air flow rate of the cold air or the hot air supplied to the space (interior space) to be heated and cooled, not only the fan installed in the inner space but also the fan installed in the outer space, Which can precisely control the temperature of the cold wind or the warm air without adjusting the magnitude of the current flowing through the heat exchanger.

The present invention relates to a heating and cooling apparatus using a thermoelectric element and includes a thermoelectric element (140) having a cooling function or a heat radiation function according to a direction in which a voltage is applied; Internal heat transfer means (131) provided on one surface of the thermoelectric element; External heat transfer means (132) provided on the other surface of the thermoelectric element; An internal fan (121) for supplying air to the internal heat transfer means; An external fan 122 for supplying air to the external heat transfer means; The control unit 430 controls the driving speed of the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 and the cooling and heating temperature of the external fan 122. The controller controls the driving speed of the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 , And controlling the cooling and heating temperature.

In controlling the cooling and heating temperature, only the driving speed of the fan is controlled, and the magnitude of the voltage applied to the thermoelectric element 140 is fixed, thereby enabling simple and precise temperature control.

If the difference between the temperature information provided from the temperature sensor 461 and the set temperature is greater than a predetermined error limit, the controller determines that the external fan 121 is operating, After the driving speed of the fan is changed, it is checked again whether or not the difference between the temperature information provided from the temperature sensor and the set temperature is larger than the error limit. If the difference between the temperature information provided from the temperature sensor and the set temperature exceeds a predetermined error limit The driving speed of the external fan is maintained without changing any more.

A barrier structure is interposed between the internal heat transfer means 131 and the external heat transfer means 132. Preferably, the upper barrier structure is heat insulated.

The cooling and heating apparatus using the thermoelectric device according to the present invention does not control the amount of current supplied to the thermoelectric elements but instead controls the driving of the fans installed on the indoor side and the outdoor side simultaneously so that the temperature as well as the air temperature can be controlled precisely do.

1 is a perspective view showing a structure of a thermoelectric element (Peltier element).
2 is a perspective view of a heating / cooling apparatus using a thermoelectric device according to the related art.
3 is a perspective view of an air conditioner according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a combined state of the thermoelectric element and the heat transfer means in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1. FIG.
5 is a perspective view of an air conditioner according to another embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a block diagram illustrating the operation of the air conditioner according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a temperature control method of an air conditioner according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a cooling / heating apparatus 100 using a thermoelectric device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

In the cooling / heating apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention, the fans 121 and 122 and the cooling fins 131 and 132 are symmetrically disposed on both sides of the plate-like structure 132. 4, the heat transfer units 131 and 132 each have a surface that can be attached to the heat absorbing region and the heat dissipating region of the thermoelectric element 140, respectively. On the opposite side of the surface to which the thermoelectric element 140 is attached A plurality of heat dissipating fins are formed to rapidly transfer heat or cool air generated from the thermoelectric elements 140 to the surroundings.

The plate-like structure 132 is preferably an adiabatic structure. An area represented by IN with a boundary between the upper plate structure 132 is a region to be cooled or heated, that is, a region to be air-conditioned (Hereinafter referred to as "OUT area ") for discharging heat or cool air generated due to cooling or heating of the area represented by IN. In order to cool the IN area, the heat is discharged to the OUT area through the external heat transfer device 132. Conversely, in order to heat the IN area, heat is absorbed through the external heat transfer device 132 in the OUT area.

The internal fan 121 installed in the IN area is for supplying air to the periphery of the internal heat transfer means 131 to supply cold air or warm air to the IN area and the external fan 122 installed in the OUT area is for supplying external air, And to supply air to the periphery of the external heat transfer means 132 in order to enhance the heat radiation or endothermic effect of the heat transfer member 132. In FIG. 3, arrows bent in the shape of "?" Indicate that ambient air is transferred to the internal heat transfer means 131 and the external heat transfer means 132 by the internal fan 121 or the external fan 122, respectively.

3, a cross flow fan is adopted as the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122. However, if air can be supplied to the internal heat transfer means 131 and the external heat transfer means 132, Is not particularly limited.

5 is a cooling / heating device according to a second embodiment of the present invention, except that an internal fan 121 'and an external fan 122' in the form of a general vane shape are provided instead of the cross flow fan. It is the same as the example. Since the operation mode is not different from the first embodiment, a detailed description of the second embodiment will be omitted.

In the cooling and heating apparatus using a thermoelectric element, there may be nothing special about attaching heat transfer means to the thermoelectric element and installing the fan again. However, in the prior art, the temperature is controlled by adjusting the current supplied to the thermoelectric element in adjusting the temperature of the air supplied to the IN region. In contrast, in the present invention, the amount of the current supplied to the thermoelectric element is not changed, By controlling the speed of the air supplied by the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 (which may be regarded as controlling the flow rate because the sectional area of the region to be supplied is constant), the temperature of the air supplied for cooling and heating Can be precisely controlled. For reference, although the driving speed of the fan is controlled in the conventional heating and cooling apparatus, this is for controlling the air blowing amount and not for controlling the temperature precisely.

The inventor of the present invention observed the change in temperature while changing the speed of the air supplied by the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 while keeping the magnitude of the current supplied to the thermoelectric element constant. It can be confirmed that the thermoelectric device itself can control the temperature to a sufficient degree without controlling it at all by using the combination of the speeds of the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 as shown in Table 1. [ For reference, Table 1 shows that the current is supplied to the thermoelectric element in the direction for heating the IN region, but the current is supplied to the thermoelectric element in the direction for cooling the IN region, and only the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that it is possible to control the cooling temperature. Particularly, since the internal fan 121 is used to adjust the air volume of the supplied cold air or warm air, in order to achieve the desired temperature in actual use, the air volume by the internal fan 121 is a fixed value, ), It is possible to control the cooling and heating temperature and the air volume at the same time.

That is, as can be seen from Table 1 below, the present inventor adjusted the target temperature by 4 ° C to 20 ° C in units of 1 ° C and adjusted the air velocity by the internal fan 121 and the air velocity by the external fan 122 appropriately As a result, it was confirmed that sufficient temperature control performance can be obtained without any additional control on the thermoelectric device itself.

6 is a block diagram showing an operating structure of an embodiment of the present invention. The user selects whether the cooling / heating selector 451 of the input unit 450 of the heating / cooling unit 450 performs cooling or heating. Based on the selected information, the controller 430 controls the heating / Determines the direction of the current. When the air volume is selected in the air volume selection unit of the input unit 450, the rotation speed of the internal fan 421 is determined immediately. The internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 are driven by a driving motor. The driving speed of the motor is changed by directly changing the driving voltage itself or by adjusting the driving motor speed such as a pulse width modulation (PWM) Since a known technique can be used, the description of the specific driving motor speed regulation method is omitted.

The set temperature of the air to be supplied to the IN area is determined through the set temperature selector 453 of the input unit 450. The set temperature is determined based on the information obtained through the temperature sensor 461 and the air flow rate sensor 430 Can be obtained by adjusting the driving speed of the external fan 122.

For reference, the temperature sensor 461 is preferably installed near the internal fan 121 to measure the temperature of the air supplied to the IN area, specifically at a position where the air blown by the internal fan 121 directly contacts And the air flow sensor 430 may be installed at a position where the air accelerated by the internal fan 121 or the external fan 122 is in direct contact with the air.

Although the embodiment has been described above in which the internal fan 121 fixes the wind speed on the basis of the wind speed set value inputted by the user, if the user is not interested in the wind speed itself and is interested only in temperature , It can be seen that both the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122 can be utilized for temperature control, and in this case, temperature control can be performed more effectively. Based on the technical ideas obtained by the present inventor It will not be difficult to understand.

More specifically, referring to FIG. 7, the operation method will be described in detail. Upon receiving the selection of cooling / heating, the set temperature, and the set air volume (step 502), voltage is applied to the thermoelectric element based on the obtained information, Or starts driving the external fan 122 (step 503). Here, the driving speed of the internal fan 121 is determined by the set air flow rate, and the driving speed of the external fan 121 is determined by the relationship between the later set temperature and the temperature measured by the sensor. In the next step, the wind speed (or air volume) and temperature are measured through the sensor (step 504). If the difference between the measured temperature and the set temperature is greater than the error limit, the speed of the external fan 122 is changed (Step 506). If the difference between the measured temperature and the measured temperature is within the error limit, the external fan speed is maintained (step 507).

When the measured temperature is different from the set temperature and the speed of the external fan 122 is changed, the temperature change is observed while changing the speed of the external fan 122 in units of a predetermined size. The speed of the external fan 122 can be increased or decreased so that the difference can be reduced. That is, if the speed of the external fan 122 is increased, for example, if the difference between the measured temperature and the set temperature becomes larger, the speed of the external fan 122 can be immediately reset. Of course, the above process may be performed automatically, but may be performed by manually observing the temperature while changing the speed of the external fan 122 manually.

Unlike the above embodiment, when the user is not interested in the air volume of the hot air or cool air supplied to the IN area, the wind speed of the internal fan 121 is not determined by the user, Will also be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that, as with external fan 122, it will directly contribute to reaching the target temperature setpoint at step 506 as the drive speed is continuously varied.

In the above process, the voltage applied to the thermoelectric element does not touch at all, and the temperature can be controlled by controlling the driving speed of the internal fan 121 and the external fan 122. Therefore, It is technically significant that the temperature can be controlled easily and accurately in comparison with the method of controlling the size of the liquid.

100: Heating / cooling device 121: Internal fan
122: external fan 131: internal heat transfer means
132: external heat transfer means 140: thermoelectric element
430: control unit 450:
451: cooling / heating selection unit 452: air volume selection unit
453: set temperature selection unit 461: temperature sensor
462: wind speed sensor

Claims (5)

The present invention relates to a heating and cooling apparatus using a thermoelectric element,
A thermoelectric element 140 having a cooling function or a heat dissipation function according to a direction in which a voltage is applied;
Internal heat transfer means (131) provided on one surface of the thermoelectric element;
External heat transfer means (132) provided on the other surface of the thermoelectric element;
An internal fan (121) for supplying air to the internal heat transfer means;
An external fan 122 for supplying air to the external heat transfer means;
And a controller (430) for controlling the driving speed and the cooling / heating temperature of the internal fan (121) and the external fan (122)
Wherein the controller controls the cooling / heating temperature by adjusting a driving speed of the internal fan (121) and the external fan (122).
The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the voltage applied to the thermoelectric element (140) is fixed.
The cooling / heating apparatus using the thermoelectric device according to claim 2, wherein the driving speed of the internal fan (121) is determined by an air volume set by a user.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the control unit changes the driving speed of the external fan when the difference between the temperature information provided from the temperature sensor (461) and the set temperature is greater than a predetermined error limit, If the difference between the temperature information provided from the temperature sensor and the set temperature becomes smaller than the predetermined error limit, the driving speed of the external fan is kept unchanged Wherein the thermoelectric module is a thermoelectric module.
The heating / cooling apparatus using the thermoelectric device according to claim 1, wherein a heat insulating wall is interposed between the internal heat transfer means (131) and the external heat transfer means (132).

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