Modeling and computing heat transfer phenomena involving the magnetocaloric effect is of paramount importance for designing new heat management systems. The heatrapy python package has been used to compute heat transfer phenomena in magnetic refrigerators and heat pumps for the past 5 years 1-3. It uses the finite difference method to solve the unidimensional heat conduction equation. So far, the package was downloaded over 50,000 times by the pip package manager 4.

A considerable share of devices can be modeled in one dimension. However, there are others where this is not sufficient. In those systems, at least two-dimensional approaches are required. Moreover, devices only relying on heat conduction require more complex heat transfer mechanisms, beyond the magnetocaloric effect, so that they can show functional behaviours, such as thermal phenomena involving phase transitions.

To account for these issues, the heatrapy python package was upgraded aiming to add three new major features. The first is the extension to two-dimensional models. The second is to allow the live visualization of the computation. The third feature is to allow the incorporation of phase change transitions. Figure 1 shows an example for the computation of a magnetized structure made of aluminium and gadolinium. The detailed implementation is described, as well as minor updates.