Abstract: This disclosure relates to a heat pump including a plurality of interconnected elements, each of said elements comprising a piston body having an evaporator section at one end thereof and a condenser section at the other end thereof, each condenser section being connected to a vapor condenser. Each element has its evaporator section connected by a vapor bridge to the condenser of an adjacent element. Each piston body contains a working fluid having a liquid phase and a vapor phase, the liquid phase forming a liquid piston which oscillates during operation and the pistons of the elements oscillating with a phase displacement. The evaporator sections are located in relatively warm areas and the condensers are located in another cooler area. Portions of the liquid in the evaporator sections vaporize and the vapor is heated, and the heated vapor is condensed in the condensers thereby transferring heat from the warm areas to the cooler areas.

Abstract: The dilution refrigerator operates by sucking a .sup.4 He-rich mixture from a tank and returning it to the tank through a superleak. Thereby the .sup.3 He is separated and returned to the .sup.3 He-rich content of the tank. By this cycling process, a drop in temperature is obtained at the exit of the superleak and through re-mixing of the .sup.3 He with the .sup.4 He. Cycling of the liquid .sup.3 He-.sup.4 He mixture is performed by a bellows pump maintained in a container 16 at a temperature below 2.degree. K. and by specially designed valves comprising a steel ball as a plug and a gold ring as the valve seat.

Abstract: A class of heat engines based on an intrinsically irreversible heat transfer process is disclosed. In a typical embodiment the engine comprises a compressible fluid that is cyclically compressed and expanded while at the same time being driven in reciprocal motion by a positive displacement drive means. A second thermodynamic medium is maintained in imperfect thermal contact with the fluid and bears a broken thermodynamic symmetry with respect to the fluid. the second thermodynamic medium is a structure adapted to have a low fluid flow impedance with respect to the compressible fluid, and which is further adapted to be in only moderate thermal contact with the fluid. In operation, thermal energy is pumped along the second medium due to a phase lag between the cyclical heating and cooling of the fluid and the resulting heat conduction between the fluid and the medium.

Abstract: The herein disclosed method of cold generation provides for the compression of refrigerant and its subsequent cooling. Then, at least part of the refrigerant flow if expanded, accompanied by the generation of wave energy which is extracted from the expansion zone by way of converting it to energy of another kind. Provision is made of a plant for accomplishing the method, wherein a refrigerant expansion device 20 includes a gas-jet mechanowave converter 21 and a wave energy converter 22 in the wave relationship therewith.

Abstract: An apparatus for freezing fertilized ova, spermatozoa or the like has a heat transfer bottom board block formed at the lower end of a heat insulating peripheral wall with a lower refrigerant passage capable of flowing refrigerant. A bottom board temperature sensor is attached to the bottom board block, an upper heat transfer block is placed on the bottom board block through a heat insulating joint member, formed with an upper refrigerant passage for flowing the refrigerant. A temperature control heater, an upper block temperature sensor, a plurality of erecting tube charging spaces of tubes opened at the top thereof with the bottom board block as a bottom member are disposed between the peripheral wall and the upper block in such a manner that the tubes erected and charged into the spaces are cooled at the lower ends thereof by said bottom board block and at the upper part containing articles to be frozen such as fertilized ova, spermatozoa or the like are contained in buffer solution in said tubes.

Abstract: The disclosure relates to refrigeration through magnetizing and demagnitizing a body by rotating it within a magnetic field. Internal and external heat exchange fluids and in one embodiment, a regenerator, are used.

Abstract: A magnetic refrigerating apparatus including a working material for performing magnetic refrigeration, and a magnetic field system capable of varying the distribution or intensity of a magnetic field impressed on the working material. When the working material produces heat on the high temperature side, heat exchange is performed by boiling heat transfer through a refrigerant on the high temperature side; when the working material absorbs heat on the low temperature side, heat exchange is performed by condensation heat transfer through a refrigerant on the low temperature side.

Abstract: Cold generating apparatus, wherein it comprises a cold storage enclosure filled with a material having a solid-liquid transmission in the vicinity of the operating temperature of the apparatus, a first panel forming a radiating surface, whose radiation drops into at least one of the atmospheric windows, a substantially vertical second panel immersed in the material of the cold storage enclosure, a pipe in the form of a coil on each of the first and second panels, said pipes being connected by plastically deformable couplings to form a closed circuit and a certain quantity of a fluid which is vaporizable under the operating conditions of the apparatus within the closed circuit, the assembly constituted by the first and second panels, the closed circuit and the heat transfer fluid forming a device of the heat pipe type serving as a thermal diode which only transmits heat in the direction from the storage enclosure to the radiating surface.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for transferring heat. A pair of closed loop heat transfer loops each includes a refrigerant, a condenser to remove heat from the refrigerant, and an evaporator which adds heat to the refrigerant from its associated heat source. Each loop also includes a chamber of a compressor which has a free piston common to both chambers. One of the chambers is located above the other so that in one of the two cycles of operation, thermal energy from a heat source of the loop including the upper chamber evaporates liquified refrigerant collected in a collector of the loop in the previous cycle of operation which vapor together with gravity acting on the free piston cause the piston to compress vaporized refrigerant of the other loop in the lower chamber. This compressed refrigerant is condensed by loss of heat to an associated heat sink and is collected in the collector of its loop.