Patent ID: 6526759
Filing Date: 2003-03-04
Classification: F25B,Y02B

Abstract:
A method of providing regenerative cooling of a heat transfer fluid comprising the steps of:(a) providing a ring of an even number of magnetic regenerator beds, each bed including material that exhibits the magnetocaloric effect, that is porous and allows the flow of heat transfer fluid through such magnetocaloric material, each bed having a hot end and a cold end, the beds arranged in a circular ring with the cold end of each bed adjacent to the cold end of an adjacent bed and the hot end of each bed adjacent to the hot end of an adjacent bed; (b) rotating the ring of regenerator beds through a magnetic field to alternately apply a magnetic field to and remove the magnetic field from each of the regenerator beds as the ring of beds rotates; (c) passing heat transfer fluid through a regenerator bed from the hot end of the bed to the cold end when the bed is not in the magnetic field so that the heat transfer fluid is in circumferential flow with respect to the central axis about which the bed is rotated, and passing heat transfer fluid through the regenerator bed from the cold end to the hot end of the bed in a circumferential flow when the ring of beds is rotated so that the bed is in the magnetic field.