The Vuilleumier cycle was patented by a Swiss-American engineer named Rudolph Vuilleumier in 1918. The purpose of Vuilleumier's machine was to create a
heat pump
A heat pump is a device that uses electricity to transfer heat from a colder place to a warmer place. Specifically, the heat pump transfers thermal energy using a heat pump and refrigeration cycle, cooling the cool space and warming the warm s ...
that would use heat at high temperature as energy input. The Vuilleumier cycle...
utilize working gas expansion and compression at three variable volume spaces in order to pump heat from a low to a moderate temperature level. The interesting characteristic of the Vuilleumier machine is that the induced volume variations are realized without the use of work, but thermally. This is the reason why it has a potential to operate at modern applications where the pollution of the environment is not a choice. It is a perfect candidate for such applications, as it consists only of metallic parts and inert gas
An inert gas is a gas that does not readily undergo chemical reactions with other chemical substances and therefore does not readily form chemical compounds. Though inert gases have a variety of applications, they are generally used to prevent u ...
. Using these units for heating and cooling buildings, large energy savings can be accomplished as they can be operated at small scale in common buildings or at large scale providing heat power to entire building blocks without using fossil fuels
A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...
. The use of Vuilleumier machines for industrial applications or inside vehicles is also a feasible option. Another field where these machines have already been involved is cryogenics
In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures.
The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration's (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a universa ...
, as they are also able to provide refrigeration
Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (while the removed heat is ejected to a place of higher temperature).IIR International Dictionary of ...
at very low temperatures like the very similar and well-known Stirling refrigerators.
The Vuilleumier cycle is a
thermodynamic cycle
A thermodynamic cycle consists of linked sequences of thermodynamic processes that involve heat transfer, transfer of heat and work (physics), work into and out of the system, while varying pressure, temperature, and other state variables within t ...
with applications in low-temperature
cooling
Cooling is removal of heat, usually resulting in a lower temperature and/or Phase transition, phase change. Temperature lowering achieved by any other means may also be called cooling.
The Heat transfer, transfer of Internal energy, thermal energ ...
. In some respects it resembles a
Stirling cycle
The Stirling cycle is a thermodynamic cycle that describes the general class of Stirling devices. This includes the original Stirling engine that was invented, developed and patented in 1816 by Robert Stirling with help from his brother, an en ...
or engine, although it has two "
displacers" with a mechanical linkage connecting them as compared to one in the Stirling cycle. The hot displacer is larger than the cold displacer. The coupling maintains the appropriate
phase difference. The displacers do no workthey are not pistons. Thus no work is required in an ideal case to operate the cycle. In reality friction and other losses mean that some work is required.
Devices operating on this cycle have been able to produce
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that quantitatively expresses the attribute of hotness or coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. It reflects the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms making ...
s as low as 15
K using liquid nitrogen to pre-cool. Without precooling 77 K was reached with a heat flow of 1 W.
The cycle was first patented by Vuilleumier in 1918 with patent US1275507, and again in Leiden by KW Taconis in 1951. In March 2014, the Vuilleumier Cycle was tested in application with updating conventional
HVAC
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC ) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. ...
(heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) systems by utilizing the cycle's proposed thermodynamic process of moving heat energy, and having results of increased output efficiencies coupled with a reduced
carbon footprint. This work was completed by ThermoLift), a company based out of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center at
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...
, with collaboration from the
US Department of Energy
US or Us most often refers to:
* Us (pronoun), ''Us'' (pronoun), the objective case of the English first-person plural pronoun ''we''
* US, an abbreviation for the United States
US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainme ...
and the
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This work culminated in the demonstration of the ThermoLift system at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...
in August, 2018. The demonstration showed that the ThermoLift technology (TCHP), is able to achieve coefficients of performance (COP) for the cycle that well exceeded the DOE’s target COPs for cold-climate heat pumps (although not at all exceeding
Geothermal heat pump
A ground source heat pump (also geothermal heat pump) is a heating/cooling system for buildings that use a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through ...
efficiencies). Furthermore, due to the nature of the TCHP, there is no significant capacity decrease as the inlet temperature to the cold HX decreases.
External links
Method and Apparatus for Inducing Heat Changes, Patent Application by R. Vuilleumier, 1918All US Patents based on Vuilleumier's original patent, 938 patents as of Sept 2020Vuilleumier Cycle Cryogenic Refrigeration, Technical Report, Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories, Air Force System Command, April 1976
Fractional Watt Vuilleumier Cryogenic Refrigerator, Final Report for Task 1 Preliminary Design, The Garrett Corporation, AiResearch Manufacturing Co, Prepared for Goddard Space Flight Center, March 1973The High-Capacity, Spaceborne, Vuilleumier Refrigerator by R. D. Doody, November 1980
References
* Experimental techniques in low-temperature physics,
Guy Kendall White, Philip J. Meeson, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 3
Link*Energy Savings Potential and RD&D Opportunities for Non-Vapor-Compression HVAC Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy, William Goetzler, Robert Zogg, Jim Young, Caitlin Johnson, Navigant Consulting, Inc. March 201
Link
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vuilleumier Cycle
Thermodynamics