Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V

Grenoble, France, 17-20 September 2012

SIMULATION OF A THERMOMAGNETIC MOTOR USING NiFe ALLOY

AND Gd
C. S. ALVES(a), G. L. FOLEISS, G. T. F. VIEIRA, W. SZPAK, F. C. COLMAN
(a)
Universidade Estadual de Maringá - UEM, Depto. Eng. Mecânica, Av. Colombo, 5790, Bloco 104
Maringá, 87020-900, Brazil
+554430114197, csalves@uem.br

ABSTRACT

The ever increasing demand for energy has pushed humanity to use different energy sources, in order to
achieve sustainability. In this sense, we have focused to design a rotary motor using solar power thru the
Curie effect. This paper describes and demonstrates the modeling and simulation of a Curie thermomagnetic
motor, where one of the materials used for the armature is magnetocaloric, and the external energy source is
solar. In addition to it, another objective is to analyze the influence of some physicals factors inherent in the
process of energy conversion, also the details involved with magnetic circuit and the heat transfer. It could be
verified that the gadolinium offers about one order of magnitude more efficiency when compared to NiFe
alloy, but the actual value is still too small when compared to other available solar motors to be
commercially implementable.

1.INTRODUCTION

In this section it´s presented Brazil´s current state in relation to alternate power sources used in the country.
Later an introduction to the working principle of the curie motor is made.

1.1 Brazilian energy supply

Energy is a vital input for social and economic development. As a result of their consumption activities in
agriculture, industrial and domestic energy, demand has increased considerably, especially in emerging
countries.

Nowadays, in the current Brazilian context, investment in research and technology in “renewable resources”
is already a reality. This has been practiced since the 70’s, with early studies from the government program,
the “Proálcool”, which culminated in a large-scale substitution of petroleum products. Today, the demand for
research has been in other areas, such as hydroelectric, wind, and finally solar energy.

Quantitatively, the Domestic Energy Supply (DES) in Brazil, which means the sum of the final energy
consumption, counting losses in distribution and storage, and losses in processing during the year of 2010,
reached an amount of 267.4 million equivalent tonnes of petroleum (top), which is equal to 2% of global
demand, which 45.3% corresponding to renewable energy, and within this percentage, only 4% was obtained
from wind and solar energy (Ministério de Minas e Energia, 2010).

1.2 Brazilian solar energy

Comparing Brazilian and German solar potential, it can be inferred that “if the whole flooded area from
Itaipu hydroelectric dam (170 km²) were covered with solar collectors, it would be enough to produce about
125,000 GWh/year, or half of the total Brazilian energy consumption. The most promising area in Brazil is
the northeast, with an incidence of 6 kWh/m²/year. Even on cloudy days over the state of Ceara, the
incidence solar radiation is 4.5 kWh/m²/day, while in Germany, where this energy is widely used, the
incidence is just 0.8 kWh/m²/day” (Agência estado, 2005)

1.3 Curie motor

This motor is named after its operational principle, which consists essentially in heating and cooling of a
ferromagnetic material around its Curie temperature (Tc). Due to the heating of the material, a temperature
gradient is established and the induced magnetic field assumes different values along the material’s length,

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
Grenoble, France, 17-20 September 2012

that is, there will be portions of the material where it will be ferromagnetic, and portions where it will be
paramagnetic configuring a magnetic gradient in the armature. When an external permanent magnet interacts
with the magnetic gradient, magnetic forces act on the system, dubbed the driving forces, that will cause the
anchor’s displacement. Figure 1 shows the thermal gradient and direction of displacement S.

Figure 1. Illustration and aspects of a Curie motor

Source: Modified from Karle (2001)

2. RELATED WORKS

Researches with Curie motors are being performed, where a full designed magnetocaloric motor working as
a heat pump or refrigerator can be seen form Egolf et al. (2010). With research of some materials such as
FeNi alloys and magnetocaloric alloys, that the Curie motor is on the agenda of scientists and engineers.
Based on this, four recently published papers were used as a base.

Egolf et al. (2010) presented a curie effect motor that could work as a heat pump or refrigerator using forced
convection for cooling and heating making this machine a good choice as an component to harvest energy
from exhaust fumes and discharge liquids of power cycles. It should also be noted that there are few fully
developed curie motors as presented on Egolf´s et al.work.

Karle (2000) presented the introduction of the interdependence concept between the heat transfers with
magnetism in the study of a Curie motor operation. From a model developed by the author, he could get the
simulation to determine the parameters inherent with the motor, as frequency and torque produced. Also, he
used to quantify the heat transfer by a 1D temperature profile though the finite difference method, and
modeled the magnetism effect by using the theory of magnetic circuit. Karle concludes that, for the material
used in his experiment, this kind of motor is not economically viable, since its results show very low
frequencies and torque, when compared with other kind of motors which were already in market (Karle
2001).

Takahashi et. al. (2004) reported an improvement of the frequency and the torque produced by the motor.
They used three sets of NdFeB permanent magnets in the rotor, which it is composed with five layers of
FeNi alloy. The difference from this study and that of Karle’s is that Takahashi used the rotor submerged,
that is, they used forced convection for heating and cooling the FeNi alloy, improving with this their final
result.

Trapanese (2011) correlated the operation of a Curie motor with the operation of an electromagnetic machine
by application of the dq axis theory. From this, Trapanese (2011) said that “The magnetic structure shown is
the magnetic structure of a dc electrical machine (…)”. That is, equations that describe one type of motor,
describe the other. At the end, the author proved experimentally his theory, based on analysis of the
influence of the temperature gradient in the torque generation, and the temperature difference obtained from
the beginning up to the end of the armature, which is governed both by advection and conduction in the
rotor.

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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3. MOTOR MODEL

The motor was modeled based on the work of Karle (2000) with some modifications that were made
necessary upon detailed investigation. First it is presented the thermal boundary conditions that dictate the
heat transfer in the model and afterwards the magnetic relationships that together dictate the motor´s
frequency and torque.

3.1. Heat transfer boundry conditions

The heat transfer boundary conditions are shown in Figure 2. The anchor was discretized in nodes spaced ∆x
from each order in order to use the finite difference method for the heat transfer (Incropera, 2008). As can be
seen from Figure 2 the node immediately before the magnetic field is heated with solar energy on the
top surface. For the nodes inside the gap only conduction is considered, this is a valid assumption only if the
gap is very small. For the rest of the nodes we assumed that there is convective and conductive heat transfer.

Figure 2. Heat transfer boundry conditons Figure 3. Generalized heat transfer for a control
Source: Modified from Karle (2000) volume taken around node m

It is shown in Figure 3 all the heat transfers involved in Figure 2 applied to a single node in order to obtain
generic equation for the finite difference method. This procedure is detailed in Foleiss et all. (2012)
obtaining eq. (1) where is Fourier number, T∞ is the air temperature, Biotm is biot number at node m and
p is the iteration number, where the time spent is determined multiplying p by the time step ∆t.

(1)

3.2. Magnetic Circuit

The magnetic circuit used is showed in Figures Figure 4 and Figure 5and was modeled and solved according
to Furlani´s (2001). The magnetic field in the circuit is generated by a permanent magnet of length lm and
cross sectional area Am with remanence Br and coercivity Hc. The working gap has cross sectional are Ag
and length lg. The material inside the anchor has thickness d and width W, it was considered n nodes inside
the gap.

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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Figure 4. Real magnetic circuit Figure 5. Schematic Representation

The governing relationships for the circuit shown in Figure 5 are given by eq. (2), which is used to
determine the strength of the magnetic field in the gap where is the magnetiztion of the anchor. The
eq. (3) determines the energy inside the gap for n nodes inside the gap and eq. (4) determines the force acting
on the anchor where the term is deterimined by eq. (3) where the nodes that are used are deslocated
by .

(2)

(3)

(4)

Refer to Foleiss et all. (2012) to see in detail how the governing equations, that is eqs. (2), (3) and (4), where
obtained for the magnetic circuit considered. These equations where implemented using MATLab code,
written from scratch, thus giving us full control over the simulation parameters.

4. METHODOLOGY

In this section, it is presented the chosen experimental methodology that was used to study the feasibility of
the Curie Motor with different materials. First, each material is analyzed individually with the convection
coefficient as the study parameter, maintaining all others constant, in order to perform a sensitivity analysis
of this parameter for the given material. Later, a comparison between the results for each material is made.

The simulated disc anchor was conceived with the following geometry parameters: Diameter D equal to 10
cm, thickness d of 1 mm and width W of 20 mm. The disc was discretized with nodes separated with ∆x
equal to 2mm and the time step used was 0,01 s.

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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All the results in the section were achieved using NdFeB permanent magnet with lm = 1 cm of thickness.
The surface area of the magnet was assumed to be the same as the working gap (Am = Aa), by eq. (2) it can
be seen that they cancel each other out. From many manufactures catalogs it can be assumed Hc=-8,75 105
A/m (11 kOe) Br= 1.2 T. In regards to the rest of the magnetic circuit, it was considered that the core
material as iron with large magnetic permeability, thus, having negligible reluctance (Rc = 0). Also it is
considered that the length of the gap lg tends to the length thickness of the disc d, which leads to Rg=0, and
scattering factor fs of 0,6.

The heat obtained by sun radiation was considered to be 60000 W/m2. Two materials where used in the
model for the anchor, and their thermal properties considered constant. This can be done since the changes in
these properties are small for the given operating temperature interval. They are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Thermal properties for the anchor materials

Material k (W/m.k) ρ (kg/m3) cp (J/kg.K) α (m2/s) Tc(K)

Gadolinium 10.6 7900 225 5,96 10-6 292
30% FeNi Alloy 15 8150 505 3,64 10-6 350

Four convective coefficients where simulated, they being 5, 10, 15 and 20 W/m2K for the gadolinium and for
the FeNi alloy. It is important to keep in mind that a curie motor can only operate with the sun heat and
natural convection if the ambient is compatible with the material, that is, there exists a proper T∞ for the
given the Tc. For gadolinium T∞ was used as 273 K and for the FeNi alloy as 298 K.

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

First it´s presented the simulation results for gadolinium and after for the 30% NiFe alloy. A discussion is
then followed comparing both results.

5.1. Simulation results for Gadolinium

The calculated force for the Gd and the convection coefficients are show in Figures Figure 6Figure 7 , Figure
8 and Figure 9. It was needed that they be plotted separately for clarity reasons, as the overlay plot would
hide some key aspects of the graph.

Figure 6 Gd force for convection of 5 W/m2k Figure 7. Gd force for convection of 10 W/m2k

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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Figure 8. Gd force for convection of 15 W/m2k Figure 9. Gd force for convection of 20 W/m2k

Analyzing Figures Figure 7., Figure 8. and Figure 9., it can be concluded that the force oscillates between a
minimum value and a maximum value after reaching a steady state operation. Also, for larger values of the
convection coefficient, the force tends to the maximum possible value, in this case 1,8 N. From Figure 6 it
can be concluded that the disc became isothermal in this case at around 170 seconds. This is because the
convection is so small, that it could not remove all the heat that is being absorbed from the sun causing the
whole disk to achieve a temperature above its curie temperature, as a result the force dropped to zero.

From Figure 10., it can be concluded that the smaller the value of h, greater is the frequency, but there is a
limit to this as for h = 5 W/m2k the frequency increased drastically and then stopped after becoming
isothermal. In the first 100 seconds of simulation from Figure 11 it can be concluded that the smaller the
convection coefficient, the greater the efficiency.

Figure 10.Frequency dependency of h for Gd Figure 11. Eficiency dependency of h for Gd

The shape of the frequency obtained in Figure 10. is very similar to the curve obtained by Trapanese (2011)
but the magnitude is off by 102. This is because in Trapanese (2011) the anchor is levitating, maintaining the
speed because there are no resistive forces acting on it.

5.2. Simulation results for NiFe alloy

An approach similar to the one taken with the gadolinium was used for the NiFe alloy. The resulting forces
for each convection coefficient can be seen in Figure 12.

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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Figure 12. Relationship between forces and the convection coeficients

From Figure 12 it can be seen that the resulting force for the first 50 seconds are the same for every
convection coefficient. After that, the disc enters a steady state operation and the force starts to oscillate
between a maximum and a minimum value, much like the it happened with the gadolinium. For the
coefficients 15 and 20 W/m2K the forces seemed to oscillate around the same value, between 1,0 to 1,4.
These values and are around the as the ones obtained by Karle (2000).

Figure 13. Frequency dependency on h for NiFe Figure 14. Eficiency dependency on h for NiFe Alloy

From Figure 13 it can be concluded that the smaller the convection coeficent, the greater the frequency.
Meanwhile, the opposite can be verified with the eficiency in Figure 14.

6. CONCLUSION

When we use the gadolinium as the magnetocaloric material it can be concluded that one should not simulate
for short spans of time when dealing with a curie motor. For instance, in these conditions all four convection
coefficients lead to similar results in force, frequency and efficiency for the first 100 seconds of simulation.
The same can be concluded for the NiFe alloy for the first 50 seconds.

When comparing the forces between both materials, an interesting result is that they are around the same
values for the maximum limit. It was expected that with the Gd being magnetocaloric that the upper limit for
the force would be greater than that of the NiFe alloy. A key difference between them is that the force for Gd

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 Fifth IIF-IIR International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature, Thermag V
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oscillates a lot more, meaning that the “effective force” (that is the mean force acting on the anchor) is
smaller in magnitude when compared with that of the NiFe.

The frequency achieved by both materials are very small, less than one rpm as reported in literature.

When comparing efficiency obtained from both materials , it could be verified that the gadolinium offers
about one order of magnitude more efficiency when compared to NiFe alloy, but the actual value is still too
small when compared to other available solar motors to be commercially implementable, for instance solar
dish Stirling motors.

It can be seen that the convection coefficient is significantly impacts on the curie motor. If the balance
between the heat input and heat output is no maintained, the motor will cease to work. From the discussed it
can be concluded that for a curie motor driven by solar energy is not commercially feasible using Gd and
NiFe alloy given their physical properties. However, it can be seen that no matter what material is used, the
force, frequency and efficiency always behave the same way.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to CNPq and Fundação Araucária for the financial support to our research, Paulo Trevizoli
for his continued support and Juliano Foleiss for reviewing the text.

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