Scaling of thermoacoustic refrigerators

The possibility of scaling-down thermoacoustic refrigerators is theoretically investigated. Standing-wave systems are considered as well as traveling-wave. In the former case, a reference system is taken that consists of a resonator tube (50 cm) with a closed end and a PVC stack (length 5 cm). Helium is used at a mean pressure of 10 bar and an amplitude of 1 bar. The resulting operating frequency is 1 kHz. The variation of the performance of the refrigerator when scaled down in size is computed under the prerequisites that the temperature drop over the stack or the energy flux or its density are fixed. The analytical results show that there is a limitation in scaling-down a standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator due to heat conduction. Similar scaling trends are considered in traveling-wave refrigerators. The traveling-wave reference system consists of a feedback inertance tube of 0.567 m long, inside diameter 78 mm, a compliance volume of 2830cm³ and a 24 cm thermal buffer tube. The regenerator is sandwiched between two heat exchangers. The system is operated at 125 Hz and filled with 30 bar helium gas. Again, the thermal conductance forms a practical limitation in down-scaling.