NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIESONAN ACTIVE MAGNETIC REGENERATIONREFRIGERATOR OPERATING NEAR ROOM TEMPERATURE

摘要

In this paper, numerical and experimental" investigations on a magnetic refrigerator based upon the active magnetic regeneration (AMR) cycle operating near room temperature are presented. A numerical ID model based on the transient energy equations is proposed for modeling the heat exchange between the magnetocaloric material and the carrier fluid in the regenerator bed. Different steps of the AMR refrigeration cycle are analyzed in details. A simple case using gadolinium is evaluated. The obtained results including the temperature span, the coefficient of performance and the cooling power are presented and discussed. The experimental and numerical results are analyzed and compared with the data available in the literature.