Conference Year
2021
Keywords
Magnetic refrigerator, thermodynamic assessment, performance evaluation, wine cooler
Abstract
This paper presents a comparative study of magnetocaloric and vapor compression wine coolers. The vapor compression system is a commercially available 31bottle climate class N appliance, whereas the magnetic cooling device is a TRL5 prototype connected to the retrofitted insulated cabinet of the same VC cooler. Test procedures included temperature pulldown and standardized steadystate energy consumption tests. Detailed instrumentation of both systems allowed a lowlevel comparison in terms of firstand secondlaw based parameters that is unique in the literature. Although the vapor compression system is more efficient than the present magnetic cooling prototype, the behavior of its internally ideal COP led to significant, but realistic design improvements which were evaluated and quantified via a genetic algorithmbased optimization aimed at reducing the system mass and the power consumption. The numerical model, supported by the experimental data, indicate that magnetic cooling systems, although bulkier than their vapor compression counterpart, can be competitive in terms of thermodynamic performance.