In this thesis, we aimed to study the eC effect of natural rubber (NR) and to prove its potential to act as an eC material primarily. The method for improving the eC effect efficiency and fatigue life of NR were also proposed. The eC effect of NR is characterized directly, and interpretation based on the theory of strain-induced crystallization/crystallite (SIC) is proposed. The eC adiabatic temperature change and isothermal entropy change of NR can be up to 9 K and 50 kJ.m-3.K-1 (56 J.kg-1.K-1), which are larger than most of caloric materials. Two coefficients, eC strain coefficient and eC stress coefficient , are defined for evaluating the eC performance at different strains, where is the specific entropy, is the engineering strain, is the temperature and is the stretching stress. It’s found that both coefficients are maximum for a strain around 4.5, indicating that the highest eC performance occurred at middle strain, which is attributed to the occurrence of SIC. To improve the eC performance, it is proposed to apply a pre-strain, so that the low strain regime where eC performance is low can be skipped. Moreover, the large needed deformation can be reduced by the pre-strain and thus the possibility of a compact cooling system designed based on NR is improved. The fatigue property of eC effect of NR is then investigated. The fatigue life at large deformation strain amplitudes (strain of 1-6) is about 800 cycles for the tested NR, which is too short to be used for a cooling system. Decreasing strain amplitude is necessary to extend fatigue life up to requirement of a cooling device. For the same small strain amplitude of 3, the fatigue property is compared at amorphous strain regime (strain of 0-3), onset strain of melting (strain of 2-5) and high strain of SIC (strain of 4-7). It’s found that a larger eC temperature change and a better fatigue property can be obtained at two SIC strain regimes (strain of 2-5 and 4-7) than amorphous strain regime. Especially, the fatigue property at the onset strain of melting (strain of 2-5) is better than that at high strain of SIC (strain of 4-7). A high-cycle fatigue was applied at the strain of 2-5 (most promising strain regime) up to 1.7×105 cycles. It was observed that there is no crack of the sample, as well as a degradation degree of 12% of the eC temperature change. Furthermore, the eC stress coefficient (4.4 K/MPa) at onset strain of melting is larger than that at high strain of SIC (1.6 K/MPa). As a result, the middle strain regime (onset strain regime of melting) can get a higher eC performance, larger temperature change, and better fatigue life, which should be chosen for eC cooling system.