Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Performance of a nonlinear refrigerator with finite-sized cold sink

I. Iyyappan

IMSc

Refrigeration is crucial in our everyday life and industrial processes. Refrigerators transfer heat from a cold bath to a hot environment by consuming the input work/power. Depletion of fossil fuels compels us to design optimal heat devices (heat engines or refrigerators). In this work, we study the nonlinear irreversible refrigerator working between the finite-sized cold bath and an infinite-sized hot reservoir (environment) using the Onsager relations. We find the optimal path for the temperature to reach the desired cooling. We also analyze the performance of refrigerators.