Studio e caratterizzazione del circuito idraulico di un prototipo di refrigeratore magnetico

The original idea for this dissertation came during the internship at DIN (Department of Industrial Engineering – University of Bologna). This study’s aim is to develop knowledge in understanding the magnetic refrigeration (MR) technology, theoretical design skills and practical ability to perform a complete characterization of a MR device. All these efforts will lead to the design of a MR prototype, hopefully useful for a future mass production and commercialization. MR is an innovative technology for cooling devices and it could be a breakthrough in the field of room temperature refrigeration thanks to its potential. This dissertation is divided into three parts: the theoretical introduction to refrigeration and more precisely MR, the development of the design process of the MR device, the experimental characterization of the behavior of the hydraulic infrastructure of the prototype. Chapter 5 is between the last two parts and it sums up the development of this project, in order to help the reader see the forest instead of the trees. After a short explanation about traditional cooling technologies, the introduction shows the state of the art of MR, focusing the attention on magnetocaloric effect (MCE) thermodynamic and on the active magnetic regenerative (AMR) regenerators. The core activity of this study is illustrated in the second couple of chapters. Chapter 3 describes the design process of the hydraulic circuit and its components, drawn on Creo PTC®. The analytical part of this design process is in chapter 4, with the study of pressure drops through original algorithm. The last part illustrates the determination, the development and the first results of the testing system, which is applied to the hydraulic circuit. During this phase the software used is LabVIEW® from the National Instruments Company.