Active magnetic regenerator (AMR) refrigeration is an alternative technology to conventional vapor-compression refrigerators that has the potential to operate at higher efficiencies. Based on the magnetocaloric effect, this technology uses the magnetization and demagnetization of environmentally neutral solid refrigerants to produce a cooling effect. To become competitive however, a large amount of research into the optimal device configurations, operating parameters and refrigerants is still needed. To aid in this research, a simplified model for predicting the general trends of AMR devices at a low computational cost is developed. The derivation and implementation of the model for an arbitrary AMR is presented. Simulations from the model are compared to experimental results from two different devices and show good agreement across a wide range of operating parameters. The simplified model is also used to study the impacts of Curie temperature spacing, material weighting and devices on the performance of multilayered regenerators. Future applications of the simplified AMR model include costing and optimization programs where the low computational demand of the model can be fully exploited. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/4210 |
| Date | 29 August 2012 |
| Creators | Burdyny, Thomas |
| Contributors | Rowe, Andrew Michael |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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