Abstract Scope |
Magnetic cooling utilizes magnetocaloric materials (MCMs) that heat up when exposed to a magnetic field and cool down when the field is removed―the cyclic exposure to and shielding from a magnetic field creates a heat pump. The MCMs are a diverse class of materials, including but not limited to rare-earth-containing crystalline materials, rear-earth-free crystalline materials, rare-earth-based amorphous materials, and transition metal-based amorphous materials, synthesized/fabricated by a myriad of techniques. Grey relational analysis (GRA) was applied in conjunction with principal component analyses (PCA) and hierarchical clustering (HC) on MCMs. Both objective and subjective weights were applied. The sorting of the alloys by GRA corresponding to several weighting methods and grey relational grades (GRG) was consolidated by PCA, and HC clustered similar alloys and composites. The investigation highlights similarities across several MCMs, suggests potential replacement or substitute for existing MCMs, and provides directions for improvement and/or development of MCMs. |