ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,679,173, issued on July 14, was assigned to VOLKSWAGEN AG (Germany).
"Elastocaloric heat pump and transportation vehicle with elastocaloric heat pump" was invented by Jurgen Olfe (Volkse, Germany), Christian Schneck (Braunschweig, Germany) and Sergej Kujat (Varrel, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An elastocaloric heat pump requiring little installation space wherein the elastocaloric heat pump includes an elastocaloric element, a first coolant duct and a second coolant duct and at least one drive device, wherein the elastocaloric element is connected to a carriage on the end sides in each case, the carriages are arranged displacea...