컴퓨터 내부에 열전소자를 이용한 발열 제어 효과에 관한 연구

Abstract

In recent years, the amount of heat generated inside of the electric device has increased because of miniaturization and high performance of electric devices. It is necessary to control the generation heat effectively to improve performance and lengthen the devices' life. So, in this study, experimental study and numerical analysis were used for the thermal control inside of the computer usually used in modern life. The effect of thermal control was investigated by using thermoelectric module. To control the heat generated inside computers, two types of thermoelectric cooling system using thermoelectric module were manufactured. As for the first thermoelectric cooling system, heat sink was attached to its cooling side to expand the area of cooling side. As for the second thermoelectric cooling system, heat sink and a ventilating fan were attached to system to generate forced convection in cool air produced on the cooling side. First of all, the temperature distribution inside computer was measured to investigate the effect of cooling system to controling temperature inside computer. The two types of thermoelectric cooling systems were attached to computer, and the temperature distributions were measured when the thermoelectric cooling system and the computer were operated at the same time, and when thermoelectric cooling system was operated after the computer was operated and heat was generated. And then, to develop cooling system which is hardly affected by external environment, the temperature distribution was measured when the thermoelectric cooling system was operated after the computer was set up inside of an acrylic container and insulated. To develop new cooling system which can substitute for the existing computer cooling systems, the effect of thermoelectric cooling systems were estimated by calculating the temperature distributions when there was no cooling system in the computer and when there was cooling system only in the computer, by using numerical analysis. As the result of experiments for measuring temperature distribution inside of computer, the existing air cooling system can not effect every area inside the computers evenly. As for the thermoelectric cooling system with its cooling side attached heat sink, the temperature inside of computer decreased a little, but drops of dew were condensed due to temperature difference between heat attached to cooling side and inside of computer. Despite of a little differences of temperatures, there were nearly similar temperature distributions when the thermoelectric cooling system with heat sink and a ventilating fan attached to cooling side and the computer were operated at the same time and when thermoelectric cooling system was operated 1 hour after operating computer. And compared to the case not using thermoelectric cooling system, the temperatures wear 2.5 ~ 2.9℃ lower. When the computer was set up inside of an insulated acrylic container, despite of different patterns of temperature, average temperature was nearly similar to the temperature inside of computer using the existing cooling system. It was seen that there was no dew condensation in the experiments using thermoelectric cooling system with a ventilating fan. As a result of numerical analysis, thermoelectric cooling system attached to computer, instead of air cooling system, can be used in the place of the existing cooing system if cooling effect is enhanced by increasing thermoelectric module used in thermoelectric cooling system.