Numerical Modeling of Shell-and-Tube-like Elastocaloric Regenerator

Elastocaloric cooling is considered an environmentally friendly future alternative to vapor-compression technology. Recently, a shell-and-tube-like elastocaloric regenerator loaded in compression has demonstrated record-breaking heat-pumping performance and fatigue-resistant operation. The aim of this work is thus to present a new 1D numerical model to simulate and optimize the operation of an elastocaloric regenerator with a shell-and-tube-like design. In the first part of this work, the superelastic and elastocaloric properties of a single NiTi tube, which serve as input data for the numerical model, were determined through experimental characterization and phenomenological modeling. In the second part, the results of the numerical model were compared with the experimentally obtained results. Relatively good agreement was found regarding the temperature span, cooling and heating power, and COP values, which indicates that the developed numerical model could be used for accurate optimization of shell-and-tube-like elastocaloric regenerators. Finally, the effects of operating conditions and hysteresis losses on the performance of the shell-and-tube-like elastocaloric regenerator are modeled and discussed. This work shows that the shell-and-tube-like elastocaloric regenerator with this configuration can achieve a maximum temperature span of more than 50 K at zero-thermal-load conditions and a maximum cooling/heating power of up to 4000 W·kg−1 and COP of about 4 (at zero temperature span).