Design and simulation of a standing wave thermoacoustic refrigerator using air as the working fluid

Thermoacoustic refrigerator (TAR) is one of the best technologies accepted as an alternative to traditional cooling systems. Factors such as the fact that TAR systems have minimum environmental and human health problems such as global warming and ozone layer depletion, being lightweight and having no moving parts make these systems seen as promising clean technologies in the future. TAR creates a cooling effect by converting acoustic energy into thermal energy. In this research, a quarter wave standing wave thermoacoustic refrigerator using air as the working fluid and a speaker as an acoustic power source was designed and simulated. An algorithm suitable for the literature on thermoacoustics was used in the design. Simplified linear theory was used in this algorithm and the designed standing wave TAR model was simulated with the Design Environment for Low Amplitude Thermo Acoustic Energy Conversion (DeltaEC) program. In the study, the changes of various parameters along the resonator length were examined and the results were given graphically. Design and simulation cooling coefficient of performance (COP) results were 2.236 and 1.036 respectively.