International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development

ISSN 2249-6149
Issue1, Vol. 2

Design and Optimization of a Thermo

Acoustic Refrigerator
Bheemsha1, Ramesh Nayak. B 2, Pundarika.G3
1- Associate Professor, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, B M S College of Engineering, Bull Temple Road,
Bangalore-560019, Karnataka, India
2- Associate Professor, Dept of Industrial Engineering and Management,B M S College of Engineering, Bull
Temple Road,Bangalore-560019, Karnataka, India
3- Principal, Government Engineering College, Ramanagara-562159, Karnataka, India

Abstract
The work reported here deals with the design and optimisation of a thermo acoustic
refrigerator (TAR) as an attempt to address the future generation environment friendly energy
systems. The literature survey gives a complete picture on the history of thermo acoustics and
the work carried out in the field of thermo acoustics till today. The motivation of the design of
thermo acoustic refrigerator explains the reasons for carrying out the work illustrating its
benefits and how the performance of the TAR in future can be made efficient in comparison
with the performance of a conventional refrigerator. The general linear theory of thermo
acoustics is used as a basis for the design taking simplified assumptions into consideration of
the design. Optimization is carried out using MATLAB. The optimisation of different
components is carried out to improve the performance and minimise losses in the thermo
acoustic refrigerator. For a cooling power of 10 watts, the stack COP was optimized and
found to be 2.4948. The acoustic losses in the small diameter resonator tube were minimized
by taking the optimized value of the diameter ratio (D2/D1) equal to 0.43.

Keywords: Thermoacoustic, Stack, Heat exchangers, Resonator tube, Buffer volume

___________________________________________________________________________

1 Introduction
1.1 A Standing-Wave Thermo Acoustic Refrigerator
The configuration of standing-wave thermo acoustic refrigerators is simple. A
standing-wave TAR comprises a driver, a resonator, and a stack. The practical device also

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utilizes two heat exchangers; however, they are not necessary for creating a temperature
difference across the stack. The parts are assembled as shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1 Configuration of a standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator

The driver, which is often a modified electro dynamic loudspeaker, is sealed to a

resonator. Assuming the driver is supplied with the proper frequency input, the resonator will
respond with a standing pressure wave, amplifying the input from the driver. The standing
wave drives a thermo acoustic process within the stack. The stack is so called because it was
first conceived as a stack of parallel plates; however, the term stack now refers to the thermo
acoustic core of a standing-wave TAR no matter the cores geometry. The stack is placed
within the resonator such that it is between a pressure antinode and a velocity antinode in the
sound wave. Via the thermo acoustic process, heat is pumped toward the pressure antinode.
The overall device is then a refrigerator or heat pump depending on the attachment of heat
exchangers for practical application.
A temperature gradient can be created along the stack with or without heat
exchangers. The exchangers merely allow a useful flow of heat. If the hot end is thermally
anchored to the environment and the cold end connected to a heat load, the device is then a
refrigerator. If the cold side is anchored to the environment and the load applied at the hot
end, the device operates as a heat pump. In any case, a few simple parts make up the thermo
acoustic device, and no sliding seals are necessary.
Before introducing quantitative thermo acoustic theory, a simplified qualitative
Lagrangian explanation of the thermo acoustic refrigeration cycle is helpful. Consider a parcel
of gas in a channel between two plates, as in Figure 2, where the gas is acted upon by an
acoustic standing wave. To keep things simple, the acoustic wave is considered a square wave
and no losses are taken into account. There is a relatively small temperature gradient imposed
on the walls of the channel such that the top is hot and the bottom cold. The thermo acoustic
process can be conceptually simplified into four steps.

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Fig. 2 Thermoacoustic cycle

First, the gas parcel undergoes adiabatic compression and travels up the channel due to
the acoustic wave. The pressure increases by twice the acoustic pressure amplitude, so the
temperature of the parcel increases accordingly. At the same time, the parcel travels a distance
that is twice the acoustic displacement amplitude. Then the second step takes place. When the
parcel reaches maximum displacement, it is has a higher temperature than the adjacent walls,
assuming the imposed temperature gradient is sufficiently small. Therefore, the parcel
undergoes an isobaric process by which it rejects heat to the wall, resulting in a decrease in
the size and temperature of the gas parcel. In the third step, the second half-cycle of the
acoustic oscillation moves the parcel back down the temperature gradient. The parcel
adiabatically expands as the pressure becomes a minimum, reducing the temperature of the
gas. The gas reaches its maximum excursion in the opposite direction with a larger volume
and its lowest temperature. Finally, in step four, the parcels temperature has become lower
than the local wall temperature (again assuming a small temperature gradient) so that heat
flows from the wall to the gas parcel. The process then repeats so that small amounts of heat
can be transported up the temperature gradient along the wall. Although the actual thermo
acoustic process is much more complicated than this idealized description, this view of
thermo acoustics yields a few useful ideas. Each gas parcel can only move a small amount of
heat over a small temperature difference in this manner, so to move the heat across a larger
temperature difference or move more heat (increase the power output), the situation must be
modified. To move heat over a larger temperature difference, the length of the channel can be
extended to allow more gas parcels to participate in moving the heat. Then, the temperature
gradient is the same, but the total temperature difference increases. If the goal is to move
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more heat, then adding more channels in parallel will effectively increase the heat capacity of
the gas so that the cooling/heating power of the process is increased. Alternatively, the
working gas parameters can be modified so that its temperature fluctuates over a wider range,
or the acoustic pressure can be increased to achieve the same effect.
If the temperature gradient perfectly matches the adiabatic temperature change in the
gas, then there is no heat transfer in the second and fourth steps; the necessary temperature
distribution is called the critical temperature gradient. If the gradient is smaller than this
value, then the cycle will perform a heat pumping action; however, if the gradient is larger
than the critical value, then the cycle will produce work in the form of an acoustic oscillation.
Therefore, both thermo acoustic engines (TAEs) and thermo acoustic refrigerator (TARs) utilize the
same process, differing only in the temperature boundary condition. When losses are
considered, the critical temperature gradient becomes a critical range rather than a single
value so that no useful work is done in this range; acoustic power is absorbed and heat is
moved down the temperature gradient. As stated above, this Lagrangian view of thermo
acoustics is extremely simplified.

2 Design of Thermo Acoustic Refrigerator

A thermo acoustic refrigerator consists of an acoustic driver/speaker with a housing
attached to a gas filled resonator tube in which a stack and two heat exchangers are placed and
a vacuum vessel in which the resonator is contained. The system is constructed in such a way
that all components are independent so that specific parts can be exchanged when the design
changes or for other reasons. In the following section, the design and construction of the
different parts will be described in detail. A schematic illustration of a thermo acoustic
refrigerator is as shown in Figure 3.

Fig. 3 Thermoacoustic refrigerator experimental setup

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2.1 Design Strategy

The stack is considered as the heart of any thermo acoustic system. It can be seen that these
systems have very complicated expressions which cannot be solved, which necessitates the
use of approximations. The coefficient of performance of the stack for example which can be
defined as the ratio of heat pumped by the stack to the acoustic power dissipated in the stack.
A simplified expression is derived from the short stack and boundarylayer approximation
[1]. However, even after the approximation, the expression looks complicated. They contain a
large number of parameters such as working gas, material and geometrical parameters of the
stack. It is difficult to deal with so many parameters in engineering. However, one can reduce
the number of parameters by choosing a group of dimensionless independent variables. Some
dimensionless parameters can be deduced directly. Others can be defined from the boundarylayer and short stack assumptions [1, 2]. The parameters of paramount importance in thermo
acoustics, which are contained in the work flow and heat flow expressions are given in Table
1 and 2.
Table 1 Operating and working gas variables

Operational variables

Working gas properties

Operating frequency

Dynamic viscosity

Average pressure PM

Thermal conductivity K

Dynamic pressure amplitude PO

Sound velocity a

Mean temperature TM

Ratio of isobaric to isochoric specific heat

Temperature gradient TM

Mach number M

Specific heat CP

Drive ratio D

Gas density m

Cooling power QC

Prandtl number

The goal in the design of a thermo acoustic refrigerator is to meet the requirements of
a given cooling power QC and a given low temperature TC. These requirements are added to
the operation parameters as shown in Table 1. The low temperature T C is shown indirectly in
the form of Temperature gradient TM.

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Table 2: Normalised and non-dimensional design parameters

Non-Dimensional Parameters
Normalised thermal penetration Depth
Normalised Stack center position xsn
Normalised Stack Length Lsn
Normalised Acoustic power loss in Small Diameter resonator tube
Normalised Cold heat exchanger position from the driver end xchn
Normalised Hot heat exchanger position from the driver end xhhn
Normalised Length of Cold heat exchanger L chn
Normalised Cold heat exchanger position from the driver end Lhhn
Acoustic Mach Number M

The boundary layer and short stack approximations assume the following [1, 2]:
i.

The reduced acoustic wavelength is larger than the stack length /2 very much
greater than LS, so that the pressure and velocity can be considered as constant over
the stack and that the acoustic field is not significantly disturbed by the presence of
the stack.

ii.

The thermal and viscous penetration depth is smaller than the spacing in the stack x
and V are very much less than y0 .This assumption leads to the simplification

of Rotts functions, where the complex hyperbolic tangents can be set equal to one.

iii.

The temperature difference is smaller than the average temperature TM very much
greater than TM, so that the thermo physical properties of the gas can be considered
as constant within the stack.

2.2 Design Operating Conditions

For this investigation a design of refrigerator for a temperature difference of TM

=60K and a cooling power of 10 watts was chosen. In the following, the selection of some
operating parameters, the gas and stack materials was discussed.

2.3. Design Assumptions

The assumptions made in the design process are:
1. The thermal conduction (i.e. heat leak from cold side to the hot side) along both the

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stack material and the gas in the stack is neglected.

2.

The stack is short compared to the wavelength of the acoustic standing wave.

3. The temperature difference across the stack is a small fraction of the mean
temperature of the stack and gas.
4. The heat and work flow are steady state.
5. The viscosity at the boundary layer is assumed to be zero.

2.4 Design Procedure

A total of 5 basic components have to be designed, of which stack is the most
important. Its not only the most critical component when it comes to the functioning of the
thermo acoustic refrigerator, but also has a determining effect on the design and dimensioning
of all remaining components. In order to begin with the design of the stack, first the values of
all parameters are obtained and finalized. Sometimes direct values are not available. Values at
particular temperatures are accurately available and using appropriate formulae, the values at

operating temperatures can be calculated. The temperature gradient TM is indicative of the

range of temperatures within which the system is going to be operating. Given the lowest
temperature TC and the highest TH one can obtain the operating temperature range which is

nothing but TM.

(1)
Assuming that the maximum operating temperature is 45 oC; and minimum -15oC, a
temperature difference of 60 oC was obtained. In an effort to simplify calculations a
concentrated effort has been put into converting all parameters into dimensionless form so

that computations are simpler. This is achieved by normalising them. Hence TM is converted

into TMN, the normalised mean temperature difference by dividing with mean temperature
TM. Assuming mean temperature to be 300 K, a value of 0.2 is obtained.

(2)

2.5 Dynamic Pressure

The dynamic pressure amplitude PO is limited by the following three factors:
1. The maximum force of the driver
2. Non-linearities
3. Drive ratio

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The acoustic ach number can be defined as,

(3)
The acoustic Mach number for noble gases has to be limited to 0.1 in order to avoid
any nonlinear effects [1]. Correspondingly, the drive ratio has to be less than 3%. The value of
2% was chosen.

2.6 Average Pressure and Drive Ratio

After fixing the temperatures, the average pressure was calculated. Since the power
density in the thermo acoustic device is proportional to the average mean pressure P M and
drive ratio

. Hence it is preferable to choose PM and drive ratio D as large as possible.

This is determined by the mechanical strength of the resonator. On the other hand K, the
thermal penetration depth is inversely proportional to the square root of P M. So a high
pressure results in a small K and small stack plate spacing. This makes the construction

difficult. Taking into account these effects and also making the preliminary choice for Helium
as the working gas, the maximal pressure is 12 bars and drive ratio should be D less than 3%
[2]. An average mean pressure of 10 bars and drive ratio 2% was chosen. To minimize the
heat conduction from the hot side of the stack to the cold side, a holder made of Ertacetal
material with low thermal conductivity was used.
Drive ratio D = 2%

Hence
Hence the maximum dynamic pressure amplitude is limited to P 0 = 0.2 bar

2.7 Sound Speed

Speed of sound is given by the expression
(4)
When a sound wave travels through an ideal gas, the longitudinal wave is expected to
be polytrophic or adiabatic and therefore the pressure and volume obey the relationship
(5)
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= 1.67 for Helium

The association with the sound wave happens so quickly that there is no opportunity
for heat to flow in or out of the volume of air. This is the adiabatic assumption. Density of gas
is
(6)

Now,

(7)

Therefore speed of sound is

(8)

The ideal gas relationship:

(9)
(10)

This can also be written as [3]

(12)

The conditions for these relationships are that the sound propagation process is adiabatic and
the gas obeys the ideal gas laws.
R = 8.314 J/ mol-K and M = 0.004002602 kg/ mol
Hence, for a mean absolute temperature of 300 K the sound speed is found to be

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2.8 Frequency
As the power in the thermo acoustic device is a linear function of the acoustic
resonance frequency [2] an obvious choice is thus a high resonance frequency. On the other
hand k is inversely proportional to the square root of the frequency which again implies a

stack with very small plate spacing. Making a compromise between these two effects and the
fact that the driver resonance has to be maintained to the resonator resonance for high
efficiency of the driver, the frequency of 400Hz was chosen [2].

2.9 Working Gas

After fixing the above values, its time to choose the working gas. It should not be
chemically reactive and should also have a high thermal conductivity. Owing to these reasons,
helium is chosen. It is a noble gas and hence not reactive and has a high thermal conductivity
[3]. It also has the highest sound velocity of all inert gases. Furthermore helium is cheap in

comparison with other noble gases. A gas with a high thermal conductivity is used since k is
proportional to the square root of the thermal coefficient (k).
Having chosen Helium, its properties have to be noted down. Sometimes, accurate
values at desired temperatures are not available necessitating the use of formulae to
extrapolate those values to arrive at the values at the required temperature. Hence the
following formulae are used to arrive at accurate values. Thermal conductivity of helium at
required temperature is given by [3]
(13)
The value of bk is 0.72 for Helium. At 300K the thermal conductivity is 0.1513 W/mK.
The specific heat ratio

for a mono-atomic gas like helium is 5/3 [3]. Specific heat is

found to be 5192.872 [3]. Gas density of helium is 1.626 kg/m3 calculated using the formula
[3].
(14)

(15)

Prandtl number is a dimensionless parameter characterizing the ratio of kinematic viscosity to

thermal diffusivity, which is a very important parameter to study the behaviour of gases in
thermo acoustic devices. The Prandtl number is given by [3]
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(16)

The prandtl number written in terms of thermal and viscous penetration depth is

(17)
Viscous friction has a negative effect on the performance of a thermo acoustic system.
Decreasing the prandtl number generally increases the performance of a thermo acoustic
device. Kinetic gas theory has shown that the prandtl number for monatomic gases is about
0.2. Lower prandtl number can be realized using noble gases like Helium and coefficient of
performance of refrigerator can be maximized. The value of

can be obtained from either

equation. They yield the same answer. Prandtl number of 0.6835 is obtained for pure Helium
gas [4-7].
(18)
(19)
A value of V = 0.0987 mm and K = 0.11941 mm was got by calculations.

3 Optimisation of the Thermo Acoustic Refrigerator

In mathematics and computer science, optimization or mathematical programming
refers to choosing the best element from some set of available alternatives.

3.1. Dimensionless Optimization

The motive behind optimization is to improve the performance of the thermo acoustic
refrigerator and to minimize the losses occurring in various components of thermo acoustic
refrigerator. Optimization is done to get the maximum co-efficient of performance taking
practical aspects into consideration.
Dimensionless Optimization (DO) is used in design problems, and consists of the following
steps:

Rendering the dimensions of the design dimensionless

Selecting a local region of the design space to perform analysis on.

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Creating an I-optimal design within the local design space.

Forming response surfaces based on the analysis.
Optimizing the design based on the evaluation of the objective function, using the
response surface models.

First, the standing wave thermo acoustic refrigerator was designed for a cooling power of 10
watts and the required dimensions of the components of thermo acoustic refrigerator were
calculated. Secondly, a MATLAB program was devised for the design equations of thermo
acoustic refrigerator. This MATLAB program was used to optimise the design of thermo
acoustic refrigerator to get the optimum co-efficient of performance by minimizing the total
losses in the stack, cold and hot heat exchangers, small and large diameter resonator tube.
Finally, the various values for stack length and stack centre position were got from this. From
the values obtained it was tabulated in Microsoft excel and using scatter option the graph of
COPSTACK versus Lsn for various Xsn values were plotted to locate the maximum value of
COPSTACK. From the maximum value of COPSTACK were noted the corresponding
dimensions for stack and heat exchangers.
The acoustic power loss in small diameter tube (Wsrs) was minimised by plotting the graph of
diameter ratio (D2/D1) with respect to Wsrs. The least value of acoustic power loss was found
and the value of diameter ratio (D2/D1) corresponding to least value of acoustic power loss
was found out.

3.2. Optimization of the stack geometry

In the performance calculations, the data shown in table 3 are used.
Table 3 Parameters used in the performance calculations

Operation parameters
Pm =10 bar

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Gas parameters
a = 1019.1047 m/sec.

Tm = 300K

= 0.6835

Tmn = 0.2

= (5/)

= 0.02

= 400Hz,

= 2.46615m-1

B = 0.75
kn

= (2/3)

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Fig. 4 Performance calculations for the stack, as function of the normalized length and normalized stack centre position

Figure 4 shows the performance calculations as function of the normalized stack

length Lsn, for different normalized stack positions xn. The normalized position xn = 0,
corresponds to the driver position (pressure antinode). In all cases the COP shows a
maximum. For each stack length there is an optimal stack position. As the normalized length
of the stack increases, the performance peak shifts to larger stack positions, while
performance decreases. This behaviour is to be understood in the following way: A decrease
of the centre position of the stack means that the stack is placed close to the driver. This
position is a pressure antinode and a velocity node which will be discussed in the acoustic
concepts [4-7].
From the fact that sin (kx) is zero where cos (kx) is maximum and vice versa, it
follows that pressure antinodes are always velocity nodes and vice versa; the pressure and
velocity are spatially 90 degrees out-of-phase. The frequency of the acoustic standing wave is
determined by the type of gas, the length L of the resonator and the boundary conditions. A
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quarter-wavelength resonator is suitable. But a half-wavelength resonator can also be used.

This depends on how the standing wave fits in the tube. A half-wavelength resonator has two
closed ends, so that the velocity is zero at the ends and the pressure is maximal (antinodes).
The resonance modes are given by the condition that the longitudinal velocity vanishes at the
ends of the resonator is used.

Hence,
(20)
Where,
(21)
In this case it is found that the first (fundamental) mode which is usually used in
thermo acoustic devices, corresponds to L = /2, ergo the name half-wavelength resonator.
For a quarter-wavelength resonator, one end is open and the other end is closed.
This requires a pressure node at the open end, hence
cos kL = 0

(22)

(n = 1, 2, ,)

(23)

so that

The fundamental mode corresponds to L = /4, ergo the name quarter-wave resonator.

The refrigerator shown in Figure 5 is assumed to be a half-wavelength device. Thus, in

the resonance tube, the pressure and velocity distributions will be obtained indicated in
Figure.5

Equation (24) shows that the viscous losses are proportional to the square of the
acoustic velocity. Thus decreasing the velocity will result in a decrease of the losses and
hence a higher COP. The effect of the position of the stack in the standing wave is discussed.

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In this section, the effect of the position of the stack in the standing-wave thermo acoustic
devices will be illustrated. In Figure 5 some important length scales are also shown: the
longitudinal lengths, wavelength = 2L, gas excursion x1, stack length LS, and the mean stack
position from the pressure antinode xS, and the transversal length: spacing in the stack
2 k.For audio frequencies, and typically for thermo acoustic devices

(25)

Fig. 5 Model of a thermoacoustic refrigerator. a) An acoustically resonant tube containing a gas, a stack of parallel plates and two heat
exchangers. An acoustic driver is attached to one end of the tube and the other end is closed. Some length scales are also shown: the gas
excursion in the stack x1, the length of the stack LS, the position of the center of the stack from the closed end Xs and the spacing in the stack
2k. (b) Illustration of the standing wave pressure and velocity in the resonator.

Fig. 6 Amount of heat is shuttled along the stack plate

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Due to the heat transfer of the parcel of gas to the next, as a result heat Q is
transported from the left end of the plate to the right end, using work W. The heat increases in
the stack from Qc to Qh.
Since the sinusoidal displacement x1 of gas parcels is smaller than the length of the
plate LS, there are many adjacent gas parcels, each confined in its cyclic motion to a short
region of length 2x1, and each reaching the extreme position as that occupied by an adjacent
parcel half an acoustic cycle earlier Figure 6. During the first half of the acoustic cycle, the
individual parcels move a distance x1 toward the pressure antinode and deposit an amount of
heat Q at that position on the plate. During the second half of the cycle, each parcel moves
back to its initial position, and picks up the same amount of heat, that was deposited a half
cycle earlier by an adjacent parcel of gas. The net result is that an amount of heat is passed
along the plate from one parcel of gas to the next in the direction of the pressure antinode as
shown in Figure 6. Finally, it can be noted that, although the adiabatic temperature T1 of a
given parcel may be small, the temperature difference T m over the stack can be large, as the
number of parcels LS/x1, can be large Figure 6. Due to the heat transfer of the parcel of gas to
the next, as a result heat Q is transported from the left end of the plate to the right end, using
work W. The heat increases in the stack from Q c to Qh.
From the above acoustic concept it is clear that the maximum cooling power is
roughly between the pressure antinode and pressure node( /8). From the Figure 4 it is clear
that for a normalized stack length above 0.35 the COP is lower than one. Considering the
above remarks and for practical reasons, a normalized stack center position of X n =0.15 was
chosen. To achieve optimum performance this requires a stack length of Lsn = 0.1. Expressed
in terms of the normal stack center position and length, X s= 6.0823331970753 cm and Ls =
4.0548887980502 cm. This is equivalent to place the hot end of the stack at a distance of
4.0548887980502 cm from the driver. Under these conditions the dimensionless cooling
power is Qcn =2.599747597328005e-006.
Since the required cooling power is 10 watt this leads to a cross sectional area A
=37.25061041907 cm2. This means a radius of r = 3.4434339782798 cm for a cylindrical
resonator. To pump 10 watt of heat the stack uses 4.008313650454014 watts of acoustic
power (COP = 2.494814745564465).

4 Conclusions

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The design and optimisation of thermo acoustic refrigerator for a cooling power of 10 watt
was designed and analysed. From the available literatures initially it was assumed that the
optimised value of COP was found at normalised stack centre position, xsn=0.22 and
normalised stack length, Lsn=0.23 for a cooling power of 4 watt. The optimisation graphs
for 4 watt and 10 watt cooling power was compared. It was found that the optimised value
of stack COP for 10 watt cooling power was found to be 2.4948 at xsn=0.15 and Lsn=0.1
which is greater than the stack COP of 1.3 [2] .
From the optimization graph shown in Figure 5, it was clear that the maximum cooling
effect of the thermo acoustic refrigerator was found at the position of maximum pressure
amplitude (Pressure-antinode). Hence; the stack centre position should be placed at the
maximum pressure amplitude.
The acoustic power loss in the resonator tube was minimised by optimizing the geometry
of the resonator tube. It was found that the losses in small diameter tube were minimum at
the diameter ratio of 0.43.
The design has a lot of scope for further improvement by experimenting and investigating
the design and optimisation of the heat exchangers for various geometries for copper
material as it has a high thermal conductivity. The design of the heat exchangers can be
carried for different geometries and the particular geometry can be chosen which
dissipates minimum acoustic power loss. The design of the resonator can be further
improvised by incorporating various different configurations of resonator tube (square
tube, rectangular tube, hollow tube, etc) and the energy losses at the transition between the
large diameter and small diameter tube can be found. A method can be devised to reduce
the energy losses at the transition point (A point between large and small diameter
tube).The main aim of improvising the design of resonator tube geometry is to ensure that
the acoustic pressure waves do not create any turbulence problems.

The variation of the COP with respect to the cooling power can be studied and analysed.
The PLL controller (Phase Loop Locked) can be designed and its performance can be
studied and suitable steps can be incorporating to improve its design. Suitable mechanism
to detect the gas leakage can be found such as pressure relieving valve or safety valve as
the leakage of the inert gases can lead to asphyxiation problems.

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Finally, it can conclude that there is nothing like the universal best design since the
thermo acoustics is an ongoing research area. In future an improvised design can be
expected so that its working can be made feasible and applicable in various fields such as
Automobiles, Aeronautics and electronic cooling equipments (Feasibility study of thermo
acoustic heat engines on the performance of automobiles and aircrafts can be studied).The
support of industries and governmental agencies is must for this technology to be made a
viable option. Thermo acoustic Technology is still relatively young, but it holds much
promise for a more sustainable future. The reason for making thermo acoustic a viable
option is to solve the environmental problems such as global warming and green house
gas effects.

References
[1] Swift G W, Thermoacoustic engines, Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 84, 1988
pp. 1146-80
[2] Tijani M E H, Loud speaker driven Thermoacoustic Refrigerators, Ph. D Thesis
[3] Swift G W. Thermoacoustic A unifying perspective for some engines and refrigerators,
Acoust Society of America, American institute of physics, 2002
[4] Tijani MEH, Zeegers JCH, de Waele ATAM, A gas-spring system for optimizing
loudspeakers in thermoacoustic refrigerators, Journal of Applied Physics
[5] Tijani MEH, Zeegers JCH, de Waele ATAM, Design of thermoacoustic refrigerators,
Journal of Cryogenics, 42 (2002), pp 49-57
[6] Tijani MEH, Zeegers JCH, de Waele ATAM, Construction and performance of
thermoacoustic refrigerators, Journal of Cryogenics, 42 (2002), pp 59-66
[7] Feng Wu, Lingen chen, anqing Shu, Xuxian Kan, Kun Wu, Zhichun Yang, Constructal
design of stack filled with parallel plates in standing-wave thermo-acoustic
cooler,Journal of Cryogenics, 49 (2009), pp 107-111

RS Publication

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International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development

ISSN 2249-6149
Issue1, Vol. 2

NOMENCLATURE
Lower case

Lower case Greek

Thermal expansion co-efficient

Sound velocity

[m/s]

Cp

Isobaric specific heat

[J/KgK]

Cv

Isochoric specific heat

[J/KgK]

Cs

Specific heat of the stack material [J/KgK]

pressure

Resonator Radius

Position along Sound Propagation [m]

Xs

Position of the Stack

Position perpendicular to sound propagation [m]

yo

Plate half-gap

Prandtl number

[Pa]

Molecular weight

Mach number

[Kg/mol]

Temperature

Volume

Acoustic power

Tm Mean temperature

RS Publication

Dynamic viscosity

[Pa/s]

Angular frequency

[rad/s]
[m]

Stack heat capacity ratio

Wave length

[m]

Upper case Greek

ormalized temperature gradient

Perimeter

[m]

Sub and Superscripts

k

[kg/m3]

Ratio of isobaric to isochoric specific heats

[m]

[m]

Density

Penetration depth

[m]

Upper case
m

[K-1]

[K]
[

Thermal

res Resonator
Viscous

[watt]
[K]

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