Characteristics of a Loop-type Thermoacoustic Refrigerator with a Sound Generator

Abstract

The loop-type thermoacoustic refrigerator with a thermoacoustic sound generator is introduced and the performance of this system is experimentally examined. This system can supply cold heat without using refrigerants or moving parts, which is different from the present refrigerant cycle. The loop-type thermoacoustic sound generator system is constructed and the performance of this system is examined first. For the thermoacoustic sound generator, a thin tube ceramic honeycomb was introduced as a regenerator, and air was introduced as a working gas. The experiment was conducted for several cell densities and temperature gradients of the regenerator inside a sound generator. Here, the pressure amplitude and phase difference of the sound inside a resonance tube was recorded and evaluated using a FFT analyzer. The work intensity, that is power intensity of the generated sound, is theoretically estimated from the experimental result. The optimum experimental condition for the loop-type thermoacoustic sound generator was applied to the loop-type thermoacoustic refrigerator. The cold heat was obtained by this system and the characteristics of the system are shown in this paper.