Abstract
Thermoacoustic refrigerators are emerging devices that make use of meaningful high-pressure sound waves to induce cooling. Despite the accelerated progress in the field of thermoacoustics, knowledge of the heat transfer process in the heat exchange of the devices is still developing. This work applies different soft computing techniques, namely, an artificial neural network trained by particle swarm optimisation (ANN-PSO), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), and artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the oscillatory heat transfer coefficient in the heat exchangers of a thermoacoustic device. This study provides the details of the parametric analysis of an artificial neural network model trained by particle swarm optimisation. The solution model considers the number of neurons, the swarm population, and the acceleration factors to develop and analyse the architecture of several models. The regression model (R2) and mean squared error (MSE) were used to evaluate the accuracy of the models. The result showed that the proposed soft computing techniques can potentially be used for the modelling and the analysis of the oscillatory heat transfer coefficient with a higher level of accuracy. The result reported in this study implies that the prediction of the OHTC can be considered for the enhancement of thermoacoustic refrigerators performances.
Highlights
Traditional ways of refrigeration have played an important role in modern life
Most of the established heat transfer relationships cannot be applied to the constant flow design in thermoacoustic devices
Applied two AI techniques, namely, an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and an artificial neural network trained by particle swarm optimisation (ANN-PSO), to estimate the heat oscillatory transfer coefficient heat exchanger functioning in a thermoacoustic device
Summary
Traditional ways of refrigeration have played an important role in modern life. The traditional refrigeration process is stimulated by the vapour compression cycle that utilises certain refrigerants. The process involving heat exchanges and thermoacoustic stacks has shown severe complexities. Oscillating flow is a typical process in the operation of thermoacoustic refrigerators where the working gas follows an intermittent oscillatory wave. The oscillatory flow in a heat exchanger is considered to be one of the significant elements in thermoacoustic devices and can influence the entire efficiency of devices following the thermoacoustic stack [3]. The work proposes an alternative technique for obtaining taining the OHTC values in a thermoacoustic heat exchanger. Little is known about heat transfer in oscillatory flows with zero mean velocity The understanding of these flows could potentially contribute meaningfully to the improvement of thermoacoustic system performance [13]. Tijani experimentally studied the influence of varying the plate spacing on the performance of the thermoacoustic refrigerator.
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