Design and Development of Peltier-Based Thermal Vacuum Chamber

Project Title

Design and Development of Peltier-Based Thermal Vacuum Chamber

Project Area of Specialization Electrical/Electronic EngineeringProject Summary

There is an emerging concept of developing and deploying miniature satellites in the outer space as can be seen from recent launches such as ISRO’s PSLV-C37 program and NASA’s CUBESAT Launch Initiative. Satellites are an important part for future developments and connectivity. These satellites are expensive and are mostly developed by university students and have many complex process to get completed but there are very few methods to test them before sending them to orbit and they are very expensive. Students often lacks the advanced facilities to check the compatibility of their designs with the rigorous conditions of the outer atmosphere and space. One of these facilities includes Thermal Vacuum Chamber which simulates various thermodynamic conditions similar to the conditions of space for testing of components and systems. Currently Pakistan is emerging in Aeronautical field and have many ongoing projects regarding satellites. It will be a major loss for Pakistan if the satellite didn’t work according to requirements and rework is much expensive so to prevent this we are proposing a new method for satellite testing that will be PELTIER-BASED THERMAL VACUUM CHAMBER that will provide an affordable testing facility and can help us save millions. The Peltier effect is the reverse phenomenon of the Seebeck effect; the electrical current flowing through the junction connecting two materials will emit or absorb heat per unit time at the junction to balance the difference in the chemical potential of the two materials. Thanks to this effect, an electronic refrigerator can be made, which is known as the Peltier cooler. The Peltier cooler has been applied to niche areas such as infrared detectors, CPU coolers, wine cellars, etc., because the cooling power is lower than that of compressor-based refrigerators. This is called Thermoelectrics. Thermoelectrics are materials that can generate electricity from the application of a temperature gradient, or vice versa, through the thermoelectric effect. By exploiting this coupling between thermal and electrical properties, thermoelectric devices can be made that carry heat from a cold to a hot side (refrigeration) or that generate electricity from heat flows. Use of peltier modules as heat exchanger can reduce the complexity of the systems as well as the costs assosiated, thus providing an economically feasible system.

Project Objectives

There is an emerging concept of developing and deploying miniature satellites in the outer space as can be seen from recent launches such as ISRO’s PSLV-C37 program and NASA’s CUBESAT Launch Initiative. These satellites are mostly developed by university students who often lacks the advanced facilities to check the compatibility of their designs with the rigorous conditions of the outer atmosphere and space. One of these facilities includes Thermal Vacuum Chamber which simulates various thermodynamic conditions similar to the conditions of space for testing of components and systems. Advanced facilities such as TVC are out of reach of students due to the economical barriers and complexities of operating such facilities. There is a need of developing a simplified and low cost solution to facilitate amd encourage the students to develop advanced systems such as CUBE-SAT at university level. The objective of this project is to design and develop Thermal Vacuum Chamber which can achieve positive and negative temperatures as well as positive and negative pressures and can achieve efficiency in terms of cost/ reduce cost of manufacturing.

Project Implementation Method

For achieving the desired thermal conditions in the Thermal Vaccm Chamber a TEC Peltier device will be used to pump heat in and out of the system. For achieving the desired pressure a vacuum pump/compressor would be used. A mathematical model will be developed by integrating the heat exchange required and identifying the thermal losses occurring in the system for selection of equipment capacity and optimizing the process to achieve efficiency in design. A hardware prototype would be developed based on the outcomes of the mathematical model. The control system will integrate the parameters and relations from mathematical model to maintain the system at the desired state of temperature and pressure.

Benefits of the Project

It is expected that our study will provide a low cost and easy access Thermal Vacuum Chamber facility which could be used to simulate various thermodynamic states to improve the understanding of various phenomenon as well as can used to calibrate temperature and pressure sensors and to test the performance of various components and systems at any given temperature specially testing the performance of the future of satellites such as CUBE-SAT by simulating the conditions of outer space.

It is expected that our study will provide a low cost and easy access Thermal Vacuum Chamber facility which could be used to simulate various thermodynamic states to improve the understanding of various phenomenon as well as can used to calibrate temperature and pressure sensors and to test the performance of various components and systems at any given temperature specially testing the performance of the future of satellites such as CUBE-SAT by simulating the conditions of outer space.


 

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The Peltier effect is the reverse phenomenon of the Seebeck effect; the electrical current flowing through the junction connecting two materials will emit or absorb heat per unit time at the junction to balance the difference in the chemical potential of the two materials. Thanks to this effect, an electronic refrigerator can be made, which is known as the Peltier cooler. The Peltier cooler has been applied to niche areas such as infrared detectors, CPU coolers, wine cellars, etc., because the cooling power is lower than that of compressor-based refrigerators. This is called Thermoelectrics. Thermoelectrics are materials that can generate electricity from the application of a temperature gradient, or vice versa, through the thermoelectric effect. By exploiting this coupling between thermal and electrical properties, thermoelectric devices can be made that carry heat from a cold to a hot side (refrigeration) or that generate electricity from heat flows. Use of peltier modules as heat exchanger can reduce the complexity of the systems as well as the costs assosiated, thus providing an economically feasible system.

Final Deliverable of the Project Hardware SystemCore Industry OthersOther Industries Manufacturing Core Technology OthersOther Technologies RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption and ProductionRequired Resources

Elapsed time in (days or weeks or month or quarter) since start of the project	Milestone	Deliverable
Month 1	Literature Review	Study and gathering information regarding the topic.
Month 2	Data Collection	Collection of Required data for the development of the project
Month 3	Model Development	Development of a Model of the project using Creo or SolidWorks
Month 4	Prototype Development	Development of the prototype of the project.
Month 5	Draft thesis submission	Initial thesis submission.
Month 6	Final Thesis.	Final submission of thesis.