INFLUENCE OF VOID VOLUME AND INLET FLOW MALDISTRIBUTION ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THERMAL REGENERATORS

摘要

Void (dead) volumes represent a penalty to the thermal performance of Active Magnetic Regeneratorsrn(AMR). While much effort has been put in designing AMRs with small void volumes, in most designs,rnpenalties associated with inlet flow maldistribution and pressure loss actually increase with the reduction ofrnthe void volumes. In this work, an experimental evaluation of the combined effect of void volume and inletrnflow maldistribution is carried out. The analysis is performed based on the regenerator thermal effectivenessrndetermined experimentally in a passive regenerator test apparatus. The results show that the inlet flowrnmaldistribution has a more significant negative impact on the regenerator effectiveness than the voidrnvolume.