Study of multi-layer active magnetic regenerators using magnetocaloric materials with first and second order phase transition

Magnetocaloric materials (MCM) with a first order phase transition (FOPT) usually exhibit a large, although sharp, isothermal entropy change near their Curie temperature, compared to materials with a second order phase transition (SOPT). Experimental results of applying FOPT materials in recent magnetocaloric refrigerators (MCR) demonstrated the great potential for these materials, but a thorough study on the impact of the moderate adiabatic temperature change and strong temperature dependence of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is lacking. Besides, comparing active magnetic regenerators (AMR) using FOPT and SOPT materials is also of fundamental interest. We present modeling results of multi-layer AMRs using FOPT and SOPT materials based on a 1D numerical model. First the impact of isothermal entropy change, adiabatic temperature change and shape factor describing the temperature dependence of the MCE are quantified and analyzed by using artificially built magnetocaloric properties. Then, based on measured magnetocaloric properties of La(Fe, Mn, Si)(13)H-y and Gd, an investigation on how to layer typical FOPT and SOPT materials with different temperature spans is carried out. Moreover, the sensitivity of variation in Curie temperature distribution for both groups of AMRs is investigated. Finally, a concept of mixing FOPT and SOPT materials is studied for improving the stability of layered AMRs with existing materials.