Continuously operating elastocaloric cooling device based on shape memory alloys: modeling

Abstract

Elastocaloric cooling based on NiTi exhibits an excellent cooling capability, due to the high specific latent heats activated by mechanical loading/unloading and the small required work input. The work of the current funding period in the DFG Priority Program SPP 1599, is focused on the development and realization of a continuous operating elastocaloric cooling device. This paper presents the development of an efficient simulation tool for predicting the operation behavior of the system to support the building process of the machine. The model describes the mechanical and thermal characteristics, to find the optimized parameter set for a high-efficient, high-performance cooling unit with a large temperature span while using a minimal amount of SMA material. The simulation tool and animated visualization tool combines a parallel computing thermo-mechanical SMA model for multiple elastocaloric SMA elements with a mechanical loading system and heat transfer to the heat transport medium to guide the economic development of an efficient cooling device.