Determination of Thermohydraulic Characteristics of Reciprocating Room Temperature Active Magnetic Regenerator

In this chapter, a thermohydraulic characterisation of a reciprocating room temperature active magnetic regenerator, with gadolinium particles used as a magnetocaloric material and water used as a heat transfer fluid, was numerically carried out. A two-dimensional transient flow model was developed using COMSOL Multiphysics software in order to determine the water flow distribution in two active magnetic regenerators of cross and parallel gadolinium particles distributions for different water inlet velocities of 0.06, 0.08, 0.1 and 0.12 m.s -1. The gadolinium particles have a radius of 1.5 mm and a distance from one another of 0.9 mm. Based on the simulations results of this model, a second two-dimensional transient coupled flow and heat transfer model was then developed using the same software in order to characterise the convective heat transfer in the active magnetic regenerator of cross gadolinium particles distribution for the same water inlet velocities.