A heat transfer study aiming optimization of magnetic heat exchangers of thermomagnetic motors

• Thermomagnetic Motors Optimization.
• Heat transfer augmentation through geometry change.
• Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics to optimize heat exchangers.

One prototype of a linear reciprocating thermomagnetic motor designed to work with hot water obtained from plane solar collectors as a hot source and water at room temperature as cold source has been under development. In this motor, the force element is composed of an arrangement of permanent magnets and by two plates of magnetic material having a Curie temperature midway between the temperatures of the hot and cold sources. The magnetic material plates work as motor's heat exchangers, and are shaped in form of parallelepipedal plates with internal channels. As the power to be obtained from the motor is a direct function of its operating frequency or velocity, it is important to have an optimized design of the heat exchanger channels. We report in this work the optimization procedures performed using CFD software (Computational Fluid Dynamics) aiming to maximize the heat exchangers transfer rate. The mentioned linear reciprocating motor that has been under development is not reported here. It will be presented in another work for convenience.