Commercial magnetic refrigeration near room temperature still faces technological impediments and high costs. Although several existing laboratory apparatuses use clever solutions to overcome some challenges (Yu et al., 2010), no design satisfies the performance, reliability, and economic proposition of a vapor compression refrigerator. This study examines the total cost of cooling provided by an idealized dual-regenerator concentric Halbach design. An optimization process, based on an analytical method recently proposed by Rowe (Rowe, 2011) (Rowe, 2012) accounting for both capital and operating cost, is applied to geometrical and operational parameters. A sensitivity analysis of the results due to MCE performance and cooling demand is presented.
展开▼
