Elastocaloric cooling device: Materials and modeling

In the last decade we have witnessed the development of alternative solid-state cooling technologies based on so-called ferroic (caloric) effects. A large effort nowadays is devoted to investigating solid-state refrigeration using the magnetocaloric effect (change of temperature upon application of a magnetic field).

However, the possibility of inducing a thermodynamic transition by means of mechanical stress (martensitic transformation), i.e. the elastocaloric effect in superelastic materials, opens up new routes for solid-state refrigeration. In the recent years a large elastocaloric effect was demonstrated in Ni-Ti-based, Cu-based as well as Fe-based shape memory alloys.

Although these studies showed a great potential of the elastocaloric effect, there has not yet been much activities on development of elastocaloric cooling devices. Some ideas on elastocaloric cooling device have already been presented, but there is still a lack of knowledge and information about its actual cooling potential.