Modeling of Thermomagnetic Phenomena in Active Magnetocaloric Regenerators

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The active magnetic regenerator (AMR) consists of a porous matrix heat exchanger whose solid phase is a magnetocaloric material (solid refrigerant) that undergoes a reversible magnetic entropy change when subjected to a changing magnetic field. The cooling capacity of the cycle is proportional to the mass of solid refrigerant, operating frequency, volumetric displacement of the heat transfer fluid and regenerator effectiveness. AMRs can be modeled via a porous media approach and a model has been developed in this work to simulate the time-dependent fluid flow and heat transfer processes in the regenerator matrix. Gadolinium (Gd) is usually adopted as a reference material for magnetic cooling at near room temperature and its magnetic temperature change and physical properties were accounted for through a combination of experimental data and the Weiss-Debye-Sommerfeld (WDS) theory. In this paper, the interaction of the applied magnetic field waveform with the heat transfer fluid displacement profile and the influence of demagnetizing effects on the AMR performance are investigated numerically. The numerical model is evaluated against experimental data for a regenerator containing spherical Gd particles.