Fatigue-resistant high-performance elastocaloric materials made by additive manufacturing

Huilong Hou; Emrah Simsek; Tao Ma; Nathan S Johnson; Suxin Qian; Cheikh Cissé; Drew Stasak; Naila Al Hasan; Lin Zhou; Yunho Hwang; Reinhard Radermacher; Valery I Levitas; Matthew J Kramer; Mohsen Asle Zaeem; Aaron P Stebner; Ryan T Ott; Jun Cui; Ichiro Takeuchi

doi:10.1126/science.aax7616

Fatigue-resistant high-performance elastocaloric materials made by additive manufacturing

Science. 2019 Nov 29;366(6469):1116-1121. doi: 10.1126/science.aax7616.

Authors

Huilong Hou¹, Emrah Simsek², Tao Ma², Nathan S Johnson³, Suxin Qian⁴, Cheikh Cissé³, Drew Stasak¹, Naila Al Hasan¹, Lin Zhou², Yunho Hwang⁵, Reinhard Radermacher⁵, Valery I Levitas^{2

6

7}, Matthew J Kramer^{2

8}, Mohsen Asle Zaeem³, Aaron P Stebner³, Ryan T Ott², Jun Cui^{2

8}, Ichiro Takeuchi^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
² Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Ames Laboratory, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA.
⁴ Department of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Center for Environmental Energy Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁶ Department of Aerospace Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
⁷ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
⁹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. takeuchi@umd.edu.
¹⁰ Maryland Quantum Materials Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

PMID: 31780556
DOI: 10.1126/science.aax7616

Abstract

Elastocaloric cooling, a solid-state cooling technology, exploits the latent heat released and absorbed by stress-induced phase transformations. Hysteresis associated with transformation, however, is detrimental to efficient energy conversion and functional durability. We have created thermodynamically efficient, low-hysteresis elastocaloric cooling materials by means of additive manufacturing of nickel-titanium. The use of a localized molten environment and near-eutectic mixing of elemental powders has led to the formation of nanocomposite microstructures composed of a nickel-rich intermetallic compound interspersed among a binary alloy matrix. The microstructure allowed extremely small hysteresis in quasi-linear stress-strain behaviors-enhancing the materials efficiency by a factor of four to seven-and repeatable elastocaloric performance over 1 million cycles. Implementing additive manufacturing to elastocaloric cooling materials enables distinct microstructure control of high-performance metallic refrigerants with long fatigue life.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't