A cascade-looped thermoacoustic driven cryocooler with different-diameter resonance tubes. Part I: Theoretical analysis of thermodynamic performance and characteristics

Jingyuan Xu, Jianying Hu, Ercang Luo, Limin Zhang and Wei Dai

Energy, 2019, vol. 181, issue C, 943-953

Abstract: A looped-cascade thermoacoustic driven cryocooler is proposed and theoretically studied in this paper. This system is capable of achieving ideal acoustic fields by employing different-diameter resonance tubes. It overcomes the limitations of current configurations and possesses the advantages of high efficiency, large capacity and compact size. First, power matching between the engine-stage number and the working temperatures is investigated. Theoretical results show that either too few or too many engine stages induce negative effects: the former results in low efficiency and the latter results in over-high heating temperatures. Then, thermodynamic characteristics of the three-stage system are presented. Simulation results show that a cooling power of 1.17 kW and an overall relative Carnot efficiency of 15% can be achieved at 110 K, which is superior to the performance of the existing looped configurations. The distributions of key parameters are also presented for a better understanding of the energy conversion process. Finally, the effects of the crucial parameters—resonance-tube area-ratio and engine-regenerator area-ratio—are presented. Simulation results show that having an either too low or too high area-ratio has a significant negative effect on system performance due to improper phase relations and low acoustic impedance.

Keywords: Thermoacoustic cooling; Thermoacoustic; Cryocooler; Cascade looped (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:181:y:2019:i:c:p:943-953

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.06.009

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