Rasmus Bjørk

Review and comparison of magnet designs for magnetic refrigeration

One of the key issues in magnetic refrigeration is generating the magnetic field that the magnetocaloric material must be subjected to. The magnet constitutes a major part of the expense of a complete magnetic refrigeration system and a large effort should therefore be invested in improving the magnet design. A detailed analysis of the efficiency of different published permanent magnet designs used in magnetic refrigeration applications is presented in this paper. Each design is analyzed based on the generated magnetic flux density, the volume of the region where this flux is generated and the amount of magnet material used. This is done by characterizing each design by a figure of merit magnet design efficiency parameter, Λcool. The designs are then compared and the best design found. Finally recommendations for designing the ideal magnet design are presented based on the analysis of the reviewed designs.

Magnetocaloric properties of LaFe13−x−yCoxSiy and commercial grade Gd

The magnetocaloric properties of three samples of LaFe

Optimization and improvement of Halbach cylinder design

_{13-x-y}

The performance of a combined solar photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric generator (TEG) system

Co

The demagnetizing field of a nonuniform rectangular prism

_x

Comparison of adjustable permanent magnetic field sources

Si

An optimized magnet for magnetic refrigeration

_y

Analysis of the magnetic field, force, and torque for two-dimensional Halbach cylinders

have been measured and compared to measurements of commercial grade Gd. The samples have (x=0.86, y=1.08), (x=0.94, y=1.01) and (x=0.97, y=1.07) yielding Curie temperatures in the range 276-288 K. The magnetization, specific heat capacity and adiabatic temperature change have been measured over a broad temperature interval. Importantly, all measurements were corrected for demagnetization, allowing the data to be directly compared. In an internal field of 1 T the maximum specific entropy changes were 6.2, 5.1 and 5.0 J/kg K, the specific heat capacities were 910, 840 and 835 J/kg K and the adiabatic temperature changes were 2.3, 2.1 and 2.1 K for the three LaFeCoSi samples respectively. For Gd in an internal field of 1 T the maximum specific entropy change was 3.1 J/kg K, the specific heat capacity was 340 J/kg K and the adiabatic temperature change was 3.3 K. The adiabatic temperature change was also calculated from the measured values of the specific heat capacity and specific magnetization and compared to the directly measured values. In general an excellent agreement was seen.

Analysis of the internal heat losses in a thermoelectric generator

In this paper we describe the results of a parameter survey of a 16 segmented Halbach cylinder in three dimensions in which the parameters internal radius, rin, external radius, rex, and length, L, have been varied. Optimal values of rex and L were found for a Halbach cylinder with the least possible volume of magnets with a given mean flux density in the cylinder bore. The volume of the cylinder bore could also be significantly increased by only slightly increasing the volume of the magnets, for a fixed mean flux density. Placing additional blocks of magnets on the end faces of the Halbach cylinder also improved the mean flux density in the cylinder bore, especially so for short Halbach cylinders with large rex. Moreover, magnetic cooling as an application for Halbach cylinders was considered. A magnetic cooling quality parameter, Λcool, was introduced and results showed that this parameter was optimal for long Halbach cylinders with small rex. Using the previously mentioned additional blocks of magnets ...

Spatially resolved measurements of the magnetocaloric effect and the local magnetic field using thermography

Abstract The performance of a combined solar photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric generator (TEG) system is examined using an analytical model for four different types of commercial PVs and a commercial bismuth telluride TEG. The TEG is applied directly on the back of the PV, so that the two devices have the same temperature. The PVs considered are crystalline Si (c-Si), amorphous Si (a-Si), copper indium gallium (di) selenide (CIGS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) cells. The degradation of PV performance with temperature is shown to dominate the increase in power produced by the TEG, due to the low efficiency of the TEG. For c-Si, CIGS and CdTe PV cells the combined system produces a lower power and has a lower efficiency than the PV alone, whereas for an a-Si cell the total system performance may be slightly increased by the TEG.