Design of a water cooler.

Abstract

Peteri BV is well known for its boiling water tap: the Quooker. During the project, a conceptual water cooler, called Quooler, has been designed as an ad-on for the Quooker. Both products are located in the kitchen. The Quooler is capable to cool down the boiling water from the Quooker. The water is maintained at a temperature of 8°C and is instantly available. In this way, clean and sterilized water becomes available to the user. Basically, the whole system consists out of two sub-systems: a heat exchanger and cooler. The heat exchanger performs the first cooling stage. It cools down the Quooker water from 108 to 30°C and recovers the thermal energy. The se cond cooling stage from 30 to 8°C is performed by a “Peltier” cooler. An analysis has been performed to get a good overview of the company, the products’ context, the user, existing water coolers and cooling techniques. The analysis served as input for the program of demands and idea generation. Furthermore, literature studies, calculation models and simulations provided an input for conceptualization. The concept has been evaluated by means of various prototypes. The cooling properties of a Peltier element have been investigated for different input voltages. Also, a custom made heat exchanger has been tested on performance. The measurements proved that the Quooler is a feasible concept. The report concludes with a concept evaluation by means of the program of demands, and a range of recommendations.