Thermoacoustic Modeling of Cryogenic Hydrogen

Konstantin I. Matveev () and Jacob W. Leachman
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Konstantin I. Matveev: Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Center, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
Jacob W. Leachman: Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Center, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-13

Abstract: Future thermoacoustic cryocoolers employing hydrogen as a working fluid can reduce reliance on helium and improve hydrogen liquefaction processes. Traditional thermoacoustic modeling methods often assume ideal-gas thermophysical properties and neglect finite-amplitude effects. However, these assumptions are no longer valid for hydrogen near saturated states. In this study, a comparison between the results of computational fluid dynamics simulations using actual hydrogen properties and a low-amplitude, ideal-gas thermoacoustic theory was carried out in a canonical plate-based stack configuration at a mean pressure of 5 bar. It was found that the simplified analytical theory significantly underpredicts the cooling power of hydrogen-filled thermoacoustic setups, especially at lower temperatures in high-amplitude, traveling-wave arrangements. In addition, a thermoacoustic prime mover was modeled at higher temperatures, demonstrating very close agreement with the ideal-gas-based theory. The CFD approach is recommended for the design of future hydrogen-based cryocoolers at temperatures below 80 K.

Keywords: thermoacoustics; computational fluid dynamics; cryogenics; hydrogen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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