Design and Construction of a Standing Wave Thermoacoustic Engine for the Application of Thermoacoustic Refrigeration

Abstract

The standing wave thermoacoustic engine constructed in this work was to convert a proper temperature gradient across a porous media into an acoustic power within the solid boundaries of the media to subsequently drive the thermoacoustic refrigeration. Here, the working fluid was helium at a mean pressure of 40 bar; the porous media used was a parallel-plate stack. The experimental results showed that this engine could produce the acoustic power of up to 50.9 W with the pressure amplitude of 50 kPa, which is equivalent to the drive ratio of approximately 1.25%, and yielded the efficiency of energy conversion of up to 7.27% with a resonant frequency of 325 Hz.