Studies of strong magnetic field produced by permanent magnet array for magnetic refrigeration

The success of a room temperature magnetic refrigerator (RTMR) depends critically on two essential parts: a high magnetic field and a magnetic refrigerant material with large magnetocaloric effect. A carefully designed hollow cylindrical permanent magnet array (HCPMA) can be used to provide strong magnetic field in the cavity, the magnitude of the resulting static field can be even greater than the remanence magnetization of the magnets comprising a HCPMA. A thorough understanding of the magnetic field distribution will provide an invaluable insight into the design and optimization of HCPMA in the reciprocating and rotary RTMR systems. Here, we show a construction of a 16 piece HCPMA with realistic dimensions and we illustrate the mechanism of generating a high magnetic field in such device. We present an effective way to calculate the field distribution of a permanent magnet array with finite size and an unsymmetrical geometry. Furthermore, detailed numerical results of the magnetic field distribution an...