Scaling of thermoacoustic refrigerators

Y. Li, J.C.H. Zeegers, H.J.M. Brake, ter

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The possibility of scaling-down thermoacoustic refrigerators is theor. investigated. Standing-wave systems are considered as well as traveling-wave. In the former case, a ref. system is taken that consists of a resonator tube (50 cm) with a closed end and a PVC stack (length 5 cm). Helium is used at a mean pressure of 10 bar and an amplitude of 1 bar. The resulting operating frequency is 1 kHz. The variation of the performance of the refrigerator when scaled down in size is computed under the prerequisites that the temp. drop over the stack or the energy flux or its d. are fixed. The anal. results show that there is a limitation in scaling-down a standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator due to heat conduction. Similar scaling trends are considered in traveling-wave refrigerators. The traveling-wave ref. system consists of a feedback inertance tube of 0.567 m long, inside diam. 78 mm, a compliance vol. of 2830 cm3 and a 24 cm thermal buffer tube. The regenerator is sandwiched between two heat exchangers. The system is operated at 125 Hz and filled with 30 bar helium gas. Again, the thermal conductance forms a practical limitation in down-scaling.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTransactions of the Cryogenic Engineering Conference (CEC 2007), 16-20 July 2007 Chattanooga, Tennessee
EditorsJ.G. Weisend
Place of PublicationMelville, NY
PublisherAmerican Institute of Physics
Pages18-25
ISBN (Print)978-0-7354-0504-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume985
ISSN (Print)0094-243X
NameAdvances in cryogenic engineering
Volume53

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