This invention relates to magnetocaloric materials comprising alloys useful for magnetic refrigeration applications. In some embodiments, the disclosed alloys may be Cerium, Neodymium, and/or Gadolinium based compositions that are fairly inexpensive, and in some cases exhibit only 2.sup.nd order magnetic phase transitions near their curie temperature, thus there are limited thermal and structural hysteresis losses. This makes these compositions attractive candidates for use in magnetic refrigeration applications. Surprisingly, the performance of the disclosed materials is similar or better to many of the known expensive rare-earth based magnetocaloric materials.

A method is provided of making a magnetocaloric alloy composition comprising Ni, Co, Mn, and Ti, which preferably includes certain beneficial substitutional elements, by melting the composition and rapidly solidifying the melted composition at a cooling rate of at least 100 K/second (Kelvin/second) to improve a magnetocaloric property of the composition. The rapidly solidified composition can be heat treated to homogenize the composition and annealed to tune the magneto-structural transition for use in a regenerator.

Provided is a group of rare-earth regenerator material particles having an average particle size of 0.01 to 3 mm, wherein the proportion of particles having a ratio of a long diameter to a short diameter of 2 or less is 90% or more by number, and the proportion of particles having a depressed portion having a length of 1/10 to of a circumferential length on a particle surface is 30% or more by number. By forming the depressed portion on the surface of the regenerator material particles, it is possible to increase permeability of an operating medium gas and a contact surface area with the operating medium gas.

A preparation method for a metal soft magnetic composite material inductor includes: smelting Fe, Si and Cr and then employing a water atomization or gas atomization means to fabricate an alloy powder; after sifting by particle size, mixing powders of different particle size levels and performing coating insulation, and performing post-granulation to obtain a metal soft composite material granulation powder; adopting the granulation powder to press a material cake, and transferring and molding same; adopting a hollow coil in a liquid-phase coating mold cavity, curing and demolding to obtain a semi-finished product, then continuously heating and curing the semi-finished product, and preparing an end electrode to obtain a finished inductor.

A method of manufacturing a magnetic material, includes a surface oxides decreasing step of decreasing surface oxides of an iron powder; a powder-molded body forming step of mixing the iron powder whose surface oxides are already decreased obtained by the surface oxides decreasing step, and a compound powder A constituted by a La element and a Si element, and compressing and molding the obtained mixture powder; and a sintered body forming step of preparing a sintered body from the powder-molded body obtained by the powder-molded body forming step, by a solid phase reaction under vacuum atmosphere.

A magneto-caloric thermal diode assembly includes a magneto-caloric cylinder. A plurality of thermal stages is stacked along an axial direction between a cold side and a hot side. Each of the plurality of thermal stages includes a plurality of magnets and a non-magnetic ring. The plurality of magnets is distributed along a circumferential direction within the non-magnetic ring in each of the plurality of thermal stages. The plurality of magnets and the non-magnetic ring of each of the plurality of thermal stages collectively define a cylindrical slot. The magneto-caloric cylinder is positioned within the cylindrical slot. In each of the plurality of magnets in one of the plurality of thermal stages, a first, second, third and fourth magnet segments are positioned and oriented such that the first, second, third and fourth magnet segments collectively form a closed loop high-field zone across the cylindrical slot.

There are provided a magnetic work body capable of increasing the porosity to improve the heat exchange efficiency and a magnetic heat pump device using the same.

A plurality of tubular bodies 30 formed of a magnetic work substance and having a porosity adjusting hole 30a adjusting the porosity when a plurality of rod-shaped bodies are made adjacent to each other and joined in an axial direction of the rod-shaped body are joined so that the cross-sectional shapes of gaps 31 surrounded by the adjacent tubular bodies have the same shape and heat medium passages passing a heat medium are formed with the inner surfaces of the tubular bodies and the gaps 31.

Provided are a sheath-integrated magnetic refrigeration member capable of preventing degradation of a magnetic refrigeration material with time in a magnetic refrigeration system without lowering the magnetocaloric effect and the thermal conductivity of the magnetic refrigeration material and its production method, and a magnetic refrigeration system using the sheath-integrated magnetic refrigeration member.

The invention is a linear or thin band-like sheath-integrated magnetic refrigeration member including a sheath part 1 containing a non-ferromagnetic metal material and a core part 2 containing a magnetic refrigeration material. The production method for a sheath-integrated magnetic refrigeration member of the invention includes a step of filling a powder of a magnetic refrigeration material into the cavity of a pipe containing a non-ferromagnetic metal material, and a step of linearly working the pipe filled with a powder of a magnetic refrigeration material according to one or more working methods selected from the group consisting of grooved reduction rolling, swaging and drawing. The magnetic refrigeration system of the invention is provided with a means of operating in an AMR (active magnetic refrigeration) cycle using the sheath-integrated magnetic refrigeration member of the invention as the AMR bed.

A passive magnetic device (PMD) has a base electrode, a multi-port signal structure (MPSS), and a substrate therebetween. The MPSS has a central plate residing in a second plane and at least two port tabs spaced apart from one another and extending from the central plate. The substrate has a central portion that defines a mesh structure between the base electrode and the central plate of the multi-port signal structure. A plurality of magnetic pillars are provided within the mesh structure, wherein each of the plurality of the magnetic pillars are spaced apart from one another and surrounded by a corresponding portion of the mesh structure. The PMD may provide a magnetically self-biased device that may be used as a radio frequency (RF) circulator, an RF isolator, and the like.

An article for magnetic heat exchange includes a functionally-graded monolithic sintered working component including La.sub.1-aR.sub.a(Fe.sub.1-x-yT.sub.yM.sub.x).sub.13H.sub.zC.sub.b with a NaZn.sub.13-type structure. M is one or more of the elements from the group consisting of Si and Al, T is one or more of the elements from the group consisting of Mn, Co, Ni, Ti, V and Cr and R is one or more of the elements from the group consisting of Ce, Nd, Y and Pr. A content of the one or more elements T and R, if present, a C content, if present, and a content of M varies in a working direction of the working component and provides a functionally-graded Curie temperature. The functionally-graded Curie temperature monotonically decreases or monotonically increases in the working direction of the working component.