Effects of Stack and Heat Exchanger Configurations on Thermal Performance of a Thermoacoustic Refrigerator
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Abstract
This paper discusses the influences of relevant parameters on thermal performance of a standing wave thermoacoustic refrigerator. The effects of the parameters, such as oscillating frequency, stack and heat exchanger configurations were investigated. The thermoacoustic refrigerator built for the current study comprised of a PVC resonator pipe of 1.05 metre in length and 2 inches of nominal diameter. A loudspeaker was installed at one end of the resonator pipe to oscillate the air, which was used as the working gas. Electrical power supplied to the loudspeaker was fixed at 42 W for the whole experiment. There were three set of stacks selected in this experiment; paralleled PVC sheet stacks of 3.5 cm and 10 cm long and aluminium wire mesh screen stack with a total length of 10 cm. Three heat exchangers were used; 2.0 cm and 22 cm long galvanized steel sheet heat exchanger and 2.0 cm long copper finned heat exchanger were included in the test. In the current study, the thermal performance of the refrigerator was represented in terms of air temperature at the cold end and hot end stack, room temperature and their differences. The results revealed that the resonant frequency was found at around 80 Hz. The system with aluminium wire mesh screen stack provided the best thermal performance comparing to paralleled plate stacks. The optimum stack position was at 70 cm measurement from the front of the loudspeaker. The lowest air temperature at the cold end stack was 7oC below the room temperature, which could contribute to the installation of the copper finned heat exchanger
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References
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