A new concept refrigeration model based on thermal switch and numerical calculation.

A new concept electrocaloric effect(ECE) refrigeration model based on a certain thermal switch(TS) is presented in this paper. In the model tabular ECE materials and tabular TS alternately arrange parallelly and tightly, forming many units of the same structure. The TS has two states, on and off according to external control orders. The electric field is applied in every other ECE material sheet and let every other TS sheet be on within the fore semi-period at the same time, and alternately going adversely within the rear semi-period. The thermal conductivity of the TS in the off-state should be much lower than that in the on-state. The calculation shows that the cooling power with 20 K temperature span may be more than 1 kW per kg ECE material, and unit area cooling power may be more than 8 KW/m2 when the sheet is 0.15mm thin. In addition the COP may be up to 12 at most.