This dissertation deals with two prospectives of rare earth technology. It’s application in magnetic cooling as well as its harvesting and recycling phase. The emphasis is on mapping and manipulating the transport processes of energy and mass, during magnetic cooling and rare earth magnetic separation, under the influence of magnetic field. Distinguished by the driving force of flow field, they belong to the context of magnetohydrodynamics and ferrohydrodynamics, respectively.
Multiple aspects are investigated with respect to magnetic cooling. First, the transient dynamics of heat transfer from two periodically magnetized gadolinium (Gd) plates into a heat transfer fluid (n-decane) is studied. It demonstrates that the propagation of the thermal fronts emanating from the Gd plates after magnetization or demagnetization obeys a √t-dependence. A finite time required for magnetization and demagnetization causes a spatially delayed propagation of the thermal fronts. The diffusive heat flux, derived from the temperature profiles, experiences a drop down by about 80% after first 3 seconds while the percentage of thermal energy transferred into n-decane experiences a maximum there. With a stagnant fluid, this work provides reasons for lower bounds of geometry and operation frequency of a simplified parallel-plate structure in the diffusive limit. Furthermore, the potential of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) convection to increase heat transfer during magnetic cooling is tested. To do this, a section of an active magnetic regenerator is considered, namely a flat gadolinium plate, immersed in an initially stagnant heat transfer fluid (NaOH) which is placed in a cuboid glass cell. To create the MHD flow, a small electric current is injected by means of two electrodes and interacts with the already present magnetic field. As a result, a Lorentz force is generated, which drives a swirling flow in the present model configuration. By means of particle image velocimetry and Mach-Zehnder interferometry, the flow field and its impact on the heat transfer at the gadolinium plate is analyzed. For the magnetization stage, a heat transfer enhancement by about 40 % can be achieved even with low currents of 3 mA is found. In parallel to enhance the heat transfer by an actively stirring of the heat transfer fluid by means of MHD, alternative fluid candidate is also investigated. A room temperature eutectic liquid metal GaInSn, with superior Pr≈ 0.03, and comparable viscosity like that of water is tested in a segment of parallel plate AMR. Due to the high electric conductivity, velocity field of GaInSn contrasting to that of aqueous based ones is strongly influenced by magnetic field due to Lorentz force. Therefore, preliminary velocity measurements by means of ultrasound doppler velocimetry with a quasi homogeneous static magnetic field (220 mT) in a duct channel at the non-conducting Shercliff walls are conducted. The Hartmann walls are constituted of two parallel Gd plates. The second part of this dissertation, rare earth harvesting and recycling, aims to answer the question of why an enrichment of paramagnetic ions can be observed in a magnetic field gradient despite the presence of a counteracting Brownian motion. For that purpose, a rare-earth chloride (DyCl3) solution is studied in which weak evaporation is adjusted by means of small differences in the vapor pressure. The temporal evolution of the refractive index field of this solution, as a result of heat and mass transfer, is measured by means of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. A numerical algorithm is developed that splits the refractive index field into two parts, one space-dependent and conservative and the other time-dependent and transient. By using this algorithm in conjunction with a numerical simulation of the temperature and concentration field, it is able to show that 90% of the refractive index in the evaporation-driven boundary layer is caused by an increase in the concentration of Dy(III) ions. A simplified analysis of the gravitational and magnetic forces, entering the Rayleigh number, leads to a diagram of the system’s instability. Accordingly, the enrichment layer of elevated Dy(III) concentration is placed in a spatial zone dominated by a field gradient force. This leads to the unconditional stability of this layer in the present configuration. The underlying mechanism is the levitation and reshaping of the evaporation-driven boundary layer by the magnetic field gradient.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:32289 |
| Date | 30 November 2018 |
| Creators | Lei, Zhe |
| Contributors | Eckert, Kerstin, Kitanovski, Andrej, Technische Universität Dresden |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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