A multistage elastocaloric refrigerator and heat pump with 28 K temperature span.

ABSTRACT: Elastocaloric refrigerators are a promising alternative to the vapor compression cycle because they do not require refrigerants with high global warming potential. However, these coolers have yet to achieve temperatures low enough to - for example - be used as standard household refrigerators. We built one-stage, two-stage, and three-stage elastocaloric cooling systems to determine if staging of the elastocaloric effect could significantly expand temperature span. Our three-stage system achieved 1.5 times the maximum temperature span of our single-stage system, and produced the highest temperature span of any elastocaloric device to-date at 28.3 °C, where previously the record was 19.9 °C. Interestingly, we found that multistage systems can achieve equivalent temperature spans but at highe

SUBMITTER: Snodgrass R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6897911 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature