Thermodynamic cycle analysis of heat driven elastocaloric cooling system

Jianming Tan, Yao Wang, Shijie Xu, Huaican Liu and Suxin Qian

Energy, 2020, vol. 197, issue C

Abstract: The conventional elastocaloric cooling system is powered by mechanical drivers with more than 500 times mass over refrigerant mass, whereas the shape memory alloy actuator and heat driven cycle provide a new path for higher system compactness. Based on the thermodynamic and mechanical constraints between the actuator shape memory alloy and the refrigerant super-elastic alloy, the cycle model is implemented to investigate the characteristics of the cycle efficiency, mass ratio and driving temperature difference in terms of length ratio and cross-sectional area ratio. In addition, the impacts of Young’s modulus, transformation strain and Clausius-Clapeyron coefficient are studied. Based on the multi-objective optimization technique, regarding the three different combinations of actuator and refrigerant materials, the optimum normalized COP occurs when the MDTD ranges from 52 K to 59 K, which does not further increase with higher driving temperature, implying that low-grade thermal energy at a temperature less than 100 °C is most economic to drive such a cycle. On the other hand, the heat driven cycle can be activated by MDTD down to 11 K, indicating a significant potential to harvest low-grade thermal energy. This study can promote future prototype development for solar-driven refrigerators and waste heat recovery for electronic devices.

Keywords: Not-in-kind cooling; Solid-state cooling; Thermoelastic cooling; Caloric cooling; Low-grade thermal energy; Optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:197:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220303686

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117261

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