A modeling study on the geometry of active magnetic regenerator

Magnetic refrigeration technology needs further development not just by the improvement of magnetocaloric properties but also the optimization of the cooling system design. One of the important problems in the cooling system design is the geometry of regenerator for the efficient heat transfer between magnetic material and fluid which is the major loss mechanism in cooling system. Two kinds of regenerators are widely used. One is flat plate regenerator which can offer the best heat transfer to pressure drop ratio [2] for common regenerator design; another is porous media regenerator which can obtain a large temperature span for the good heat transfer surface. But until now, only a few research papers actually study the regenerator geometry. This paper focuses on the influence of regenerator geometry to the performance of AMR system. The 1 dimension flat plat model and porous media model have been constructed and compared with entropy generation, cooling capacity, coefficient of performance by changing plate thickness and sphere size at frequency 0.25Hz, 0.5Hz, 1, aspect ratio 2, 7, 14. The result shows that the optimized sphere size will be around 0.2mm to 0.3mm. On the other hand, 0.1mm to 0.2mm thickness plate will be more efficient. Compared the 2 models, flat plate model can get a smaller entropy generation and achieve a higher cooling capacity.