Transient performance analysis of a novel design of portable magnetic refrigeration system

The widely used ice chamber-based cold storage for the transportation and storage of vaccines has several disadvantages, including uncontrolled overall temperature, water accumulation, and frequent ice pack renewal. Therefore, in this work, we numerically studied a novel vaccine storage system by coupling magnetic refrigeration and ice packs developed by conserving the advantages of an ice-based system. A two-dimensional numerical model is developed to analyze the magnetohydrodynamic natural convection in the storage chamber. Gadolinium of 0.08 kg is used to produce a cooling power of 31.514 W and a coefficient of performance of 1.3. With the constant heat leaked of 0.828 W into the system with dimensions of (0.1 × 0.1) m, the average life of the ice pack of 0.75 kg is 1.03 h. By introducing the magnetocaloric effect, the life of the same ice pack can be infinite with no load. The dynamic mode decomposition analysis reveals that the most dominant fluid interaction occurs between the cooled gadolinium plate and the adjacent fluid, resulting in efficient cooling of the air chamber. The developed vaccine chamber design will significantly improve the existing ice pack system with a nominal increase in cost and system weight.