At sufficiently low temperature or high pressure conditions, an ideal gas obeys Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein statistics instead of Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. In this case, an ideal gas is called a quantum ideal gas. The corrected ideal gas equation of state is used for quantum ideal gases. The specific heat at constant pressure of a quantum ideal gas significantly depends on the pressure besides the temperature. In this work, Bose (4{sup left}He) and Fermi (3{sup left}He) monatomic ideal gases are considered as a refrigerant in the Ericsson refrigeration cycle. Due to the pressure dependence of specific heat at constant pressure, coefficient of performance, COP, is different from that of the classical Ericsson cycle, which works with a classical ideal gas. The changes of COP with low temperature of the cycle (T{sub}L) is examined. It is understood that the coefficient of performance is less than that of the classical cycle. Availability analysis of the cycle is made. The variation of the cycle effectiveness with T{sub}L is analysed. It is shown that the origin of performance loss is the extra heat addition or rejection processes in the regenerator due to the pressure dependence of specific heat at constant pressure. When a Bose gas is used as a refrigerant, it is seen that the refrigeration effect per cycle can be greater than that of the classical Ericsson cycle. If the Fermi gas is used as a refrigerant, the refrigeration effect per cycle is always lower than that of the classical Ericsson cycle.
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