No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The regenerator is the key component in magnetic cycles for refrigeration and heat pumping. It works as temporal thermal energy storage and separates two thermal reservoirs. Regenerators are typically made up of porous structures which may create complex flow pathways for the heat transfer fluid through the regenerator. The periodically reversing flow allows the thermal energy exchange with the packing material in the regenerators. The performance of such thermal devices depends greatly on the geometry of the porous structure, material properties as well as operating conditions. This thesis is a study about the thermo-hydraulic properties of passive regenerators under oscillating flow conditions. The first part of the thesis presents a passive regenerator testing apparatus used to measure temperature distribution and pressure drop for various types of regenerators. Three kinds of loose spheres packed regenerator beds are characterized, and the regenerator effectiveness is evaluated. In the second part of the thesis, a numerical model is developed for the predictions of pressure drop and temperature field, and the theoretical findings are applied to experimentally obtained data to interpret regenerator performance. The dead volume is investigated quantitatively and considered to affect the regenerator performance adversely. / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

Regenerative heat exchangers are established as a means of heat recovery in many industrial applications. The fixed-bed regenerators are mostly used to transfer heat from hot flue gas to cold air. In this work, several mathematical models of regenerators and several calculation methods were compared, while the preferred method is Willmott’s open method from 1964. Analysis of the influence of geometrical and operational parameters was carried out for the linear regenerator model.

Satellite precursor cells are normally quiescent but once activated they support skeletal muscle growth and regeneration by proliferating and differentiating into myoblasts. When an animal suffers from a muscle injury, quiescent satellite precursor cells are activated by nitric oxide (NO). MyoNovin (1-(3,4-Bis-nitrooxy-butoxy)-2-methoxy-benzene), as a NO donor, was developed to provide nitric oxide directly to the skeletal muscle and has been shown to promote satellite cell activation. A potential drawback of the current MyoNovin molecule is its poor water solubility. The aim of this work was to enhance the water-solubility of MyoNovin in order to improve its ease of formulation and possibly enhance its biological activity. The structure of MyoNovin (MN1) was modified with three different functional groups - methanesulfonyl (MN2), benzoic acid (MN3) and acetamide (MN4). The three novel MyoNovin analogs were identified and shown to have similar biological activity as with MyoNovin. All three MyoNovin analogs were found to have better water solubility.#Based on these results, two of the MyoNovin analogs (MN2 and MN3) had much better biological activity with respect to satellite activation and much improved water solubility and may be the most promising candidates for future studies. / May 2015

A technology with the potential to create efficient and compact refrigeration devices is an active magnetic regenerative refrigerator (AMRR). AMRRs exploit the magnetocaloric effect displayed by magnetic materials whereby a reversible temperature change is induced when the material is exposed to a change in applied magnetic field. By using the magnetic materials in a regenerator as the heat storage medium and as the means of work input, one creates an active magnetic regenerator (AMR). Although several laboratory devices have been developed, no design has yet demonstrated the performance, reliability, and cost needed to compete with traditional vapor compression refrigerators. There are many reasons for this and questions remain as to the actual potential of the technology. The objective of the work described in this thesis is to quantify the actual and potential performance of a permanent magnet AMR system. A specific device configuration known as a dual-nested-Halbach system is studied in detail. A laboratory scale device is created and characterized over a wide range of operating parameters. A numerical model of the device is created and validated against experimental data. The resulting model is used to create a cost-minimization tool to analyze the conditions needed to achieve specified cost and efficiency targets. Experimental results include cooling power, temperature span, pumping power and work input. Although the magnetocaloric effect of gadolinium is small, temperature spans up to 30 K are obtained. Analysis of power input shows that the inherent magnetic work is a small fraction of the total work input confirming the assumption that potential cycle efficiencies can be large. Optimization of the device generates a number of areas for improvement and specific results depend upon targeted temperature spans and cooling powers. A competitive cost of cooling from a dual-nested-Halbach configuration is challenging and will depend on the ability to create regenerator matrices with near-ideal adiabatic temperature change scaling as a function of temperature. / Graduate / 0548 / 0791 / 0607 / atura@uvic.ca