The Olsen cycle is a pyroelectric cycle, which was developed between 1978 and 1986 by Olsen and Bruno,[1] by Olsen and Brown,[2] Olsen and Evans,[3] as well as by Olsen et al.[4] It has been called the Ericsson cycle. However, the Olsen cycle avoids the least confusion with its analogous process of the Ericsson cycle.[5] The Olsen cycle can generate electricity directly from heat when applied to a pyroelectric material,[6] and has been the most favorable method for the generation of electricity from heat using pyroelectric energy harvesting.[7] It consists of two isothermal and two isoelectric field processes in the displacement versus electric field diagram.[8]
It can be compared to the Ericsson cycle, where working fluid undergoes two isothermal and two isobaric processes in a pressure-volume diagram.[9][10] However, the Ericsson cycle does not include the hysteresis loop, which is essentially a lag between the input of an electric field and the material's output.
References
^Olsen, R. B. and Bruno, D. A., Pyroelectric Conversion Materials, in Proceedings of 21st Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, American Chemical Society, San Diego, pp. 89–93, Aug. 25–29, 1986.
^Olsen, R. B. and Brown, D. D., High-Efficiency Direct Conversion of Heat to Electrical Energy—Related Pyroelectric Measurements, Ferroelectrics, vol. 40, pp. 17–27, 1982.
^Olsen, R. B. and Evans, D., Pyroelectric Energy Conversion: Hysteresis Loss and Temperature Sensitivity of a Ferroelectric Material, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 54, pp. 5941–5944, 1983.
^Olsen, R. B., Bruno, D. A., and Briscoe, J. M., Cascaded Pyroelectric Energy Converter, Ferroelectrics, vol. 59, pp. 205–219, 1984.
^CHAPTER 7, PYROELECTRIC ENERGY CONVERSION, Laurent Pilon. & Ian M. McKinley, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
