MIE.07 – Peltier Element

• Sami Khatri
• Waleed Noman
• Huy Vo

This project will be carried out, with assistance of Dr. Michael Brown and, by Project Group 7 which includes Huy Vo, Waleed Noman, and Samiullah Khatri. In the catering business, there are specific rules and regulations to be met by the health department. Food must meet a certain temperature for when it is required to be hot or cold. However, in today’s world, delivering food to people or restaurant is a popular business. In this project, the team will be required to research and design a product that has double chamber which will keep one side of the food warm, and the other side will keep the food cold. This project requires the team to make a device using the Peltier effect which will keeps the food somewhere around 40F, containing both a hot and cold section. Additionally, the device must be following the NSF requirements, which are the minimum food protection and sanitation requirements for the materials, design, construction and performance of equipment. In this case, the team will be using a thermoelectric cooling device (TEC) which uses the Peltier effect where the junction between two metals produces a hot and cold side while electrical power is supplied. Also, in order to control the inside temperature of the device, the team will build a probe in the chamber that will control the temperature inside to make sure the food is at a right temperature. The 3D design was performed using SOLIDWORKS with the thought of having the size and dimensions similar to that of the Uber Eats and Grubhub bags. When the design is finalized and is put into SOLIDWORKS, the team will perform an ANSYS simulation. Using the transient thermal analysis simulation which allowed the team to get an idea of the thermal results of our housing over a certain of time, the team can see how hot the device would get from the inside and out. The team was provided with $250 dollars and must build a prototype within that range so there are multiple of designs that were put into consideration before the team decide the final design. There were four categories: cost, safety, performance, and weight that were put into place for the team to quantify each device then the result would be added up to see which one would match the constraints of the project. Overall, the main requirements for this device are to use the Peltier effect to make a double chamber with one side hot and the other side cold, design with safety and comfort in mind, having a probe inside to control the temperature, make sure the size and dimensions is right the customers, and most importantly it must be safe and easy to sanitize by following the NSF requirements.