Effects of flow balancing on active magnetic regenerator performance

Experiments with a recently constructed rotary multi-bed active magnetic regnenerator (AMR) prototype have revealed strong impacts on the temperature span from variations in the resistances of the flow channels carrying heat transfer fluid in and out of the regenerator beds. In this paper we show through numerical modeling how unbalanced flow in the beds decreases the cooling power and COP for a dual bed device. Furthermore, it is shown how resistance variations in multi-bed devices give rise to unbalanced flow in the individual beds and how this decreases cooling powers and COPs of the machines by approximately 30% and 50%, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.