Influence of void volume and inlet flow maldistribution on the performance of thermal regenerators.

Void (dead) volumes represent a penalty to the thermal performance of Active Magnetic Regenerators (AMR). While much effort has been put in designing AMRs with small void volumes, in most designs, penalties associated with inlet flow maldistribution and pressure loss actually increase with the reduction of the void volumes. In this work, an experimental evaluation of the combined effect of void volume and inlet flow maldistribution is carried out. The analysis is performed based on the regenerator thermal effectiveness determined experimentally in a passive regenerator test apparatus. The results show that the inlet flow maldistribution has a more significant negative impact on the regenerator effectiveness than the void volume.