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September - December 2021

Solar Chimney Cooling System

01

Project: Passive cooling system to help keep animals, specifically dogs cool in a stationary car

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Client & Constraints

  • Client: Ali Stocks, manager of the Duke Engineering maker space The Foundry, and her two dogs Sully and Prue (Sully and Ali pictured to the right)

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  • Reason for device: Ali and her dogs participate in dog sport (called IGP) which means her dogs often spend long hours inside her car during training days. Her previous system (fans and sunshade) can be ineffective if she forgets to charge the batteries + her dogs damage the sunshade.\

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  • Must cost less than $250

  • Must be dog safe

  • System < 500 cubic inches to fit inside car during transport

  • Car must stay under 85 heat index measure

Team Members​

  • Maya Reeves

  • Bryce Fitzpatrick

  • Julia Kagiliery

  • Madison Jaffrey (me)

  • Darwin Moore (pictured above)

Initial Ideation of Key Solution

  1. Solar Chimney

  2. Solar Charged Batteries

  3. Above-car Sunshade

  4. Battery-Powered fans

  5. Arduino Feedback System

Prototyping the Solar Chimney

Came up with various designs and ways to attach the solar chimney to the car. We tested how fast it took sheet medal painted with black paint and without paint to heat up as a cheap absorber plate

Final Iteration of Solar Chimney

1. Absorber Plate      2. Ducting and Vent     3. Attachment to Vehicle

​Design Elements

  1. Window Frame

    1. Acrylic Base, 3D printed rails​

  2. Duct

    1. Moving hot hair​

    2. Vents to allow flow

  3. Absorber plate

    1. Thin piece of aluminum with a black coating​

    2. Absorptive to generate heat and warm the air around it

  4. Tent Poles

    1. Allows the chimney to be collapsable for storage ​

Other Design Ideas Changed

The Sunshade

  1. We fixed a sunshade our client already owned

  2. We tried to lift it of the car with tent poles and suction cups but it couldn't stand light wind

  3. We sewed in foam blocks with magnets in order to prevent heat transfer and to not shift around during light wind

Water Cooling

Why We Cut The Idea:

  • Concerned about bacteria growth when not in use

  • Amount of copper tubing out of budget in addition to other materials needed

  • Lack of time to properly educate ourselves on the process in order to insure animal and client safety long term

Solar Charging Fans
 

Why We Cut The Idea: The solar panel was outside of our budget and would've required heavy car modification.

 

Our New Solution: Our team bought a converter to solve our clients problem of forgetting to charge the fans at home. Sometimes simpler is easier

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© 2021 by Madison Jaffrey

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