CHECK TEMPERATURE: Controlling the Heating of Electronic Circuits: A Key-Approach Through Solid-State Elastocaloric-Effect Based Refrigerants

In recent years, a progressive interest toward elastocaloric cooling, belonging to solid-state technologies based on caloric effects, as promising alternatives to vapor compression technology, has grown. Elastocaloric effect is a physical phenomenon manifesting in shape memory alloys, where a temperature change occurs when a mechanical structural stress field is adiabatically applied. This technology is completely sustainable, since the refrigerants employed are solid-state and therefore are not due to a direct contribution to global warming, and it can be more efficient than vapor compression. To date, the elastocaloric prototypes developed in the world are about a dozen and they are still far from prospects of commercialization for residential cooling application. Controlling the temperature of electronic equipment is also essential and, currently, there are not elastocaloric devices specifically addressed to this application. In this paper the CHECK TEMPERATURE project, financed by Department of Industrial Engineering of University of Naples Federico II, is presented: the main purpose of this project is to develop an elastocaloric device targeted on miniature scale for environmentally friendly cooling of electronic components.