LIQUID HEATING AND COOLING APPARATUS Russian patent published in 1999 - IPC

FIELD: mechanical engineering including automobile and refrigerating industries, medicine, etc. SUBSTANCE: apparatus built around thermopiles depending for their operation on Peltier effect has thermopiles incorporating p and n conducting circuits interconnected through switching buses, current leads, and heat- transfer junctions; it also has heat exchangers in hot and cold liquid loops in the form of alternating ducts of hot and cold liquid loops whose upper and lower walls are formed, respectively, by hot or cold junctions of thermopiles installed in parallel in a spaced relation to each other with sealing gaskets in-between. Ducts of each heat exchanger are connected in series through branch pipes; liquid is supplied to them sequentially or concurrently and sequentially. To reduce thermal stresses, sealing gaskets are made either of flexible or stiff material and at the same time they are joined to heat- transfer junctions through flexible sealing material. Heat- transfer junctions may be made as composite structures with their parts butt-to-butt joined through flexible sealing material. EFFECT: improved refrigerating effect and operating reliability of apparatus. 9 cl, 3 dwg