Research PaperNo Access

Effect of Gas Blockage on the Theoretical Performance of Thermoacoustic Refrigerators

Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSS Academy of Technical Education, JSSATE-B Campus, Dr. Vishnuvardhana Road, Uttarahalli-Kengeri Main Road, Srinivasapura Post, Bengaluru 560060, Karnataka, India

E-mail Address: bgpsandur@gmail.com

E-mail Address: bshosalli@rediffmail.com

Corresponding author.

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G. S. V. L. Narasimham

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560012, Karnataka, India

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S. Seetharamu

Formerly Central Power Research Institute, Post Box No: 8066, Prof. Sir C.V. Raman Road, Sadasiva Nagar (P.O), Bengaluru 560080, Karnataka, India

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, and

K. Manjunatha

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rao Bahadur Y. Mahabaleshwarappa Engineering College, Cantonment, Ballari 583104, Karnataka, India

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010132521500267Cited by:0 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

Thermoacoustic refrigeration is an emerging green, novel and promising alternate technology compared to vapor compression refrigerator systems for domestic cooling. It uses environmentally benign gases like air or helium or the mixture of inert gases as working substances and has no moving parts, no lubrication and no vibration. The cooler is designed and optimized with helium and air as refrigerants operating at 10bar with 3% drive ratio for the temperature difference of 28K and stack diameter of 200mm using linear thermoacoustic theory. In this paper, the effect of gas blockage (porosity) of the spiral-stack heat exchanger system ranging from 45% to 85% on the theoretical performance of the cooler is discussed. The one-third and one-fourth wavelength convergent–divergent resonator designs are optimized with air and helium as working substances, respectively, to improve performance and power density. The optimized coolers show best performance with 85% porosity. The theoretical results are validated with DeltaEC software simulation results. The simulation results show the coefficient of performance and cooling capacity of 0.93 and 219W for helium and of 0.50 and 139W for air, respectively, at the cold heat exchanger temperature of 0^∘C.

Keywords:

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