raw · papers · ingested 2026-06-28
Future prospects for elastocaloric devices (J. Phys. Energy)
Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7655/ab1573
Source: J. Phys. Energy (IOP), 2019. Credibility: High (peer-reviewed review). Confidence: medium-high (some snippet-level).
Key points
- 2014 US DOE report ranked elastocaloric the most promising not-in-kind cooling tech (~790 TWh/yr potential savings).
- Mechanism: latent heat of a stress-induced martensitic transformation in shape-memory alloys (mainly NiTi); ΔT >20 °C.
- Fatigue is the central barrier: tension-mode lifetimes hundreds → ~5,000-6,000 cycles; commercial needs >1 million (~20,000 h). Material COP up to ~52 at ΔT_ad ~11 K reported.
- Fatigue fixes: NiTiCu >10⁷ transformation cycles; NiTi ~165 cycles in tension vs >10,000 in compression → loading mode matters enormously. AM-printed NiTiCuV sustained >10⁶ cycles with small hysteresis (Science 2019).
Relevance
Anchors the DOE “most promising” status of elastocaloric for solid-state-cooling and frames fatigue/cycle-life (not efficiency) as the gating problem.