University of Central Florida Research Foundation Inc

William U Notardonato

Wei E Wu

Louis Chow

Jayanta Kapat

Rajan Vaidyanathan

Vinu B Krishnan

Jian Hua Du

Yeong-Ren Lin

A heat exchanger includes at least one hot fluid flow channel comprising a first plurality of open cell porous elements having first gaps therebetween for flowing a hot fluid in a flow direction and at least one cold fluid flow channel comprising a second plurality of open cell porous elements having second gaps therebetween for flowing a cold fluid in a countercurrent flow direction relative to the flow direction. The thermal conductivity of the porous elements is at least 10 W/m&#xb7;K. A separation member is interposed between the hot and cold flow channels for isolating flow paths associated these flow channels. The first and second plurality of porous elements at least partially overlap one another to form a plurality of heat transfer pairs which transfer heat from respective ones of the first porous elements to respective ones of the second porous elements through the separation member.

Thermally conductive porous element-based recuperators

A thermal conduction switch includes a thermally-conductive first member having a first thermal contacting structure for securing the first member as a stationary member to a thermally regulated body or a body requiring thermal regulation. A movable thermally-conductive second member has a second thermal contacting surface. A thermally conductive coupler is interposed between the first member and the second member for thermally coupling the first member to the second member. At least one control spring is coupled between the first member and the second member. The control spring includes a NiTiFe comprising shape memory (SM) material that provides a phase change temperature &#x3c;273 K, a transformation range &#x3c;40 K, and a hysteresis of &#x3c;10 K. A bias spring is between the first member and the second member. At the phase change the switch provides a distance change (displacement) between first and second member by at least 1 mm, such as 2 to 4 mm.

Shape memory thermal conduction switch

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Merritt Island, FL, United States of America

William U Notardonato