Investigation On Pulse Tube Refrigerator Driven By Thermoacoustic Engine

Thermoacoustic refrigeration is a new type of refrigeration method, which is based on the thermoacoustic effect. It is a new and promising way to drive a pulse tube cooler by a thermoacoustic engine instead of any other mechanical compressor . Without any moving parts and with inert gas as working fluid, it has many advantages over traditional engines, such as simplicity, reliability, long non-maintenance operation and pollution free. After it was suggested by Swift and Radebaugh in 1990, investigations on pulse tube cooler driven by thermoacoustic engine were widely made in the world.The background and significance of research are firstly given in the paper. After a detailed review of the history of the research and developments of thermoacoustics, the main theories of thermoacoustics, the design principles and methods of pulse tube refrigerator are summarized respectively. Then, the principle of thermoacoustic system is also discussed qualitatively and quantitatively.Designing and founding the thermoacoustic test-bed. The structure and dimension of condenser, heater, ejector, regenerator, sound room, feedback loop, resonance forthright and pulse tube refrigerator are showed detailed.The primary experiment was done and the system's performance is analyzed by distributing parameter method of thermoacoustic network model. We find that the length of regenerator and mesh number can make the engine's efficiency well. The phase angle between sound wave and volume flux wave of regenerator is not large. So, we can look forward to a nice performance of the engine.Finally, the summarization and expectation is given.