A novel energy efficiency evaluation index

exergetic efficiency

was proposed to evaluate the performance of magnetic refrigerator rationally and compensate for the limitation in evaluating magnetic refrigerator system with available two indexes

temperature span and cooling capacity. To testify the feasibility of exergetic efficiency evaluation indexes

the experimental data by University of Victoria in the form of temperature span-heat source temperature curve and experimental data by Technical University of Denmark in the form of temperature span-cooling capacity curve were converted to the temperature span-exergetic cooling capacities. Furthermore an experimental platform was established based on Sichuan University magnetic refrigerator prototype. With the heat source temperature controlled at 25

27 and 30℃

performance parameters of refrigerator such as cooling capacity

temperature span

cooling exergy and exergetic efficiency were obtained. Experimental results indicated that the cooling capacity of the magnetic refrigerator prototype could reach 240 W and its maximum cooling exergy was 3.26 W at heat source temperature 30℃ and 6 r·min-1. With the efficiencies of motor loss

mechanical loss

hysteretic loss and eddy current loss ignored

the peak exergetic efficiency was 0.039.