ECCube – Small Scale Elastocaloric Cooling Demonstrator

Abstract The excellent elastocaloric (EC) properties of Nickel-Titanium (NiTi) enable the development of sustainable and highly efficient heating and cooling systems. To showcase the realization of elastocalorics in a functional system an elastocaloric can cooler demonstrator with fixed cooling chamber is developed. The demonstrator system is based on a rotary drive design and tensile loading of Smart Material Alloys (SMAs) wire bundles, which has been presented in. In the developed demonstrator prototype, the chamber can hold a can with the size of ø 52 × 134 mm. For optimized cooling of this volume, the development process is supported by simulation. A temperature drop of around 10 K is targeted. The general specifications of the demonstrator are set to an outer system diameter of 150 mm, carrying 12 bundles of 30 SMA wires of 200 μm diameter and a length of 150 mm. In operation, the rotational frequency is set to 0.5 Hz. To use the centered space for the cooling chamber, a novel concept for air circulation is developed. By circulating the cold airflow within the cooling chamber, the inside air temperature continuously drops with each cycle. The paper gives a detailed description of the design process from simulation-based development to assembly and first measurements of an elastocaloric can cooler demonstration system.