Phase transition regulation and caloric effect

Solid state refrigeration based on caloric effect is regarded as a potential candidate for replacing vapor-compression refrigeration.Numerous methods have been proposed to optimize the refrigeration properties of caloric materials,of which single field tuning as a relatively simple way has been systemically studied.However,single field tuning with few tunable parameters usually obtains an excellent performance in one specific aspect at the cost of worsening the performance in other aspects,like attaining a large caloric effect with narrowing the transition temperature range and introducing hysteresis.Because of the shortcomings of the caloric effect driven by a single field,multifield tuning on multicaloric materials that have a coupling between different ferro-orders came into view.This review mainly focuses on recent studies that apply this method to improve the cooling performance of materials,consisting of enlarging caloric effects,reducing hysteresis losses,adjusting transition temperatures,and widening transition temperature spans,which indicate that further progress can be made in the application of this method.Furthermore,research on the sign of lattice and spin contributions to the magnetocaloric effect found new phonon evolution mechanisms,calling for more attention on multicaloric effects.Other progress including improving cyclability of FeRh alloys by introducing second phases and realizing a large reversible barocaloric effect by hybridizing carbon chains and inorganic groups is described in brief.

Constitutive model for epoxy shape memory polymer with regulable phase transition temperature

The epoxy shape memory polymer(SMP)with adjustable phase transition temperature is a kind of high-performance shape mem-ory polymer,which can change its phase transition temperature and improve its mechanical properties through the process of photo curing.An epoxy SMP constitutive model combining phase transition and viscoelasticity is established by discretizing the epoxy SMP into several glass phase units and rubbery phase units in this paper.The model includes the viscoelastic constitutive equa-tions of glass phase units and rubber phase units,the parameter expression during shape memory process,and material parameter equation during photocuring process.And the stress relaxation behavior of epoxy SMP at different temperatures and the change of material parameters during the photo-curing process are simu-lated numerically,and the simulation results perform consistency with the experimental data.The model can not only relate shape memory effect and phase transformation in physics but also better characterize the viscoelastic properties of SMP and predict the shape memory response of SMP.