Cooling factor for magnetic refrigeration systems

Abstract The adiabatic temperature change (ΔTad) during the magnetization process of polycrystalline gadolinium and Ni51Mn33.4In15.6 Heusler alloy is directly measured near the Curie temperature. The cooling factor (CF) is introduced as the area under the curve of adiabatic temperature change versus ambient temperature. The CF provides more representative measure of cooling performance in the operational temperature range. Selecting different temperature abscissas qualitatively changes the interpretation of the cooling performance of a magnetocaloric material. In particular, plotting ΔTad versus initial temperature gives a measurably different CF compared to that given by plotting ΔTad versus average temperature.