Nowadays, most refrigeration devices are based on gas compression. The use of these compressed gases has led to serious issues such as ozone depletion and high global warming potential. Several generations of refrigerant gases have been successively banned due to their toxicity, safety issues or negative impact on the environment.
An alternative is the use of caloric materials that can be used to achieve liquid-solid refrigeration with regenerative systems or solid-solid refrigeration using single-stage refrigeration systems. Caloric materials are known to be subject to temperature variations when subjected to external loading. These materials are divided into four categories: magnetocaloric, electrocaloric, barocaloric and elastocaloric, depending on the type of loading, magnetic field, electric field, pressure or uniaxial stress, respectively. Elastocaloric materials are divided into two categories, shape memory alloys, such as Nickel Titanium (Ni-Ti) alloys, and polymers, such as natural rubber.
Polymers have not been extensively studied for the design of elastocaloric refrigeration systems. However, natural rubber is an interesting material for solid-state refrigeration as it is inexpensive and has a low environmental impact. The use of natural rubber, which can be considered as a thermal insulating material, is challenging.
The aim of this work is to get a better understanding of how natural rubber can be a good candidate for solid refrigeration for a single-stage refrigeration system. It is necessary to understand which key parameters are the most important to obtain the best temperature span and cooling power. The main scientific questions are about the possibility to obtain a better understanding of the transfer mechanisms and whether scaling up the refrigeration system can achieve larger temperature span and higher cooling power. In order to answer these questions, this PhD work focuses on the development and performance evaluation of an elastocaloric refrigeration system using natural rubber.
| Author |
| Marianne SION |
| Date of presentation |
| 2025, august 04th |
| Keywords |
| Elastocaloric refrigeration system, Heat transfer, Modeling and experimentation |
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