Preliminary Analysis of a Fully Solid State Magnetocaloric Refrigeration

Magnetocaloric refrigeration is an alternative refrigeration technology with significant potential energy savings compared to conventional vapor compression refrigeration technology. Most of the reported active magnetic regenerator (AMR) systems that operate based on the magnetocaloric effect use heat transfer fluid to exchange heat, which results in complicated mechanical subsystems and components such as rotating valves and hydraulic pumps. In this paper, we propose an alternative mechanism for heat transfer between the AMR and the heat source/sink. High-conductivity moving rods/sheets (e.g. copper, brass, iron, graphite, aluminum or composite structures from these) are utilized instead of heat transfer fluid significantly enhancing the heat transfer rate hence cooling/heating capacity. A one-dimensional model is developed to study the solid state AMR. In this model, the heat exchange between the solid-solid interfaces is modeled via a contact conductance, which depends on the interface apparent pressure, material hardness, thermal conductivity, surface roughness, surface slope between the interfaces, and material filled in the gap between the interfaces. Due to the tremendous impact of the heat exchange on the AMR cycle performance, a sensitivity analysis is conducted employing a response surface method, in which the apparent pressure, effective surface roughness and grease thermal conductivity are the uncertainty factors. COP and refrigeration capacity are presented as the response in the sensitivity analysis to reveal the important factors influencing the fully solid state AMR and optimize the solid state AMR efficiency. The performances of fully solid state AMR and traditional AMR are also compared and discussed in present work. The results of this study will provide general guidelines for designing high performance solid state AMR systems.