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Jonathan Newman, Bob Cariste, Alejandro Queiruga, Isaac Davis, Ben Plotnick, Michael Gordon, and Sidney
San Martn
We explored the basic principles of thermoacoustic refrigeration, replicating the work of Russell and Weibull to
produce a small thermoacoustic refrigerator out of readily available parts. Combined with an understanding of
the underlying thermodynamics, the model enables us to spread awareness of the viability of thermoacoustic
devices as refrigerators and heat pumps.
Introduction
From creating comfortable home environments
to manufacturing fast and efficient electronic devices,
air conditioning and refrigeration remain expensive,
yet essential, services for both homes and industries.
However, in an age of impending energy and
environmental crises, current cooling technologies
continue to generate greenhouse gases with highenergy costs.
Thermoacoustic refrigeration is an innovative
alternative for cooling that is both clean and
inexpensive. Through the construction of a functional
model, we will demonstrate the effectiveness of
thermoacoustics for modern cooling.
Refrigeration
relies
on
two
major
thermodynamic principles.
First, a fluids
temperature rises when compressed and falls when
expanded. Second, when two substances are placed in
direct contact, heat will flow from the hotter
substance to the cooler one. While conventional
refrigerators use pumps to transfer heat on a
macroscopic scale, thermoacoustic refrigerators rely
on sound to generate waves of pressure that
alternately compress and relax the gas particles
within the tube.
The model constructed for this research project
employed
inexpensive,
household
materials.
Although the model did not achieve the original goal
of refrigeration, the experiment suggests that
thermoacoustic refrigerators could one day be viable
replacements for conventional refrigerators.
v
4L
Figure 1: Shows the relationship between the phase of the wave, the
pressure, and the actual arrangement of the molecules. The black line
shows the phase of the sound wave, the red shows the pressure and the
dots below represent the actual molecules. From Reference 2
Thermoacoustics
Thermoacoustics combines the branches of
acoustics and thermodynamics together to move heat
by using sound. While acoustics is primarily
concerned with the macroscopic effects of sound
transfer like coupled pressure and motion
oscillations, thermoacoustics focuses on the
microscopic temperature oscillations that accompany
these pressure changes. Thermoacoustics takes
advantage of these pressure oscillations to move heat
on a macroscopic level. This results in a large
temperature difference between the hot and cold sides
of the device and causes refrigeration.
The most important piece of a thermoacoustic
device is the stack. The stack consists of a large
number of closely spaced surfaces that are aligned
parallel to the to the resonator tube. The purpose of
the stack is to provide a medium for heat transfer as
the sound wave oscillates through the resonator tube.
A functional cross section of the stack we used is
shown in figure 6. In typical standing wave devices,
the temperature differences occur over too small of
an area to be noticeable. In a usual resonator tube,
back towards the right, the sound wave expands the
gas. Although some work is expended to return the
gas to the initial state, the heat released on the top of
the stack is greater than the work expended to return
the gas to the initial state. This process results in a net
transfer of heat to the left side of the stack. Finally, in
the walls of the stack. If the walls of the stack are too
close, the sound cannot pass through the stack
efficiently since the viscous properties of air prevent
the air from vibrating. If the walls are too far apart,
the process described above cannot occur, since gas
packets are too far away from the wall to effectively
transfer heat. According to G.W. Swift, the ideal
spacing in a stack is 4 thermal penetration depths.6
The thermal penetration depth is the distance heat can
diffuse in a gas over a certain amount of time. For
example, if a block of aluminum is at a constant low
temperature and suddenly one side is exposed to a
high temperature, the distance that the heat penetrates
Figure 6: The basic design of our thermoacoustic refrigerator. The
design of the stack is shown on the left, which consists of closely
spaced film walls. The design on the right shows the entire setup,
with the loudspeaker, stack, and plug. The thermocouples (not
shown) were inserted one above the stack and one below the stack.
T crit
p
cp
f cp
Critical Temperature
The critical temperature is the temperature at
which no heat will be transferred through the stack. If
the temperature difference induced by the sound
wave is greater than this critical temperature, the
stack will function as a refrigerator, transferring heat
from the cold end of the tube to the warm end. If the
temperature is less than the critical temperature then
the stack will function as an acoustic engine, moving
heat from the warm region to the colder region and
creating sound waves. The function for the critical
longitudinal temperature gradient is5
loom wound with fishing wire and the film were both
sprayed with spray adhesive. The line was then
applied to film with an even distribution of weight in
order to insure optimal strength. After 10 minutes the
glue was cured enough to cut the line from loom.
2 p / c p . If these two
Procedure
To create the thermoacoustic refrigerator we
followed a plan similar to one designed by Russell et
al.5 We began by creating the stack, which we
constructed with film and fishing wire. The design
specified an optimal thermal penetration depth of 4;
however, we were restricted by material constraints
and achieved an acceptable penetration depth of 2.5.
This was achieved with 15-lb nylon fishing wire with
a diameter of 0.34 millimeters. The design called for
the fishing line to be placed in 5 mm separations, so
we each created looms as templates for stack. The
looms were created from 5 cm wide cardboard
roughly 33 cm in length with slits placed every 5 mm
on each side. This allowed for a straight application
of the fishing line to the film. The film was then cut
to a meter in length and taped to a flat surface. The
However, while removing the line from the loom, we
had to take care not to remove it from the film. This
process was repeated approximately 3 times until the
entire meter of film was covered with fishing line.
We allowed the stack to cure for several more days in
order to ensure the best quality.
Possible Modifications
One of the major problems that we had was the
heat build up at the top of the tube. Most of the
possible modifications we thought of involved of
dissipating the heat from the top of the tube. In the
Results
We successfully created a thermoacoustic heat
pump. The problem with this, however, is that we
were attempting to create a thermoacoustic
refrigerator. Our results showed that we were able to
create a high temperature gradient above room
temperature, but were unable to significantly cool the
air. We tested three thermoacoustic refrigerators that
we built. Two of these devices were created from the
instructions in the procedure section without any
modifications. The third had the heat sink
modification that was described in the modifications
section.
We collected the data for these results by
sampling the temperatures at the top and bottom
thermocouples of the refrigerators as they ran every
ten seconds, stopping when it became apparent that
there would be no more significant change.
In the three tests performed on the devices, the
temperature difference between the hot end and cold
end of the stack increased rapidly for the first thirty
seconds and reached the final value after around
ninety seconds of operation. The unmodified models
exhibited temperature differences of 11C and 14C
after thirty seconds with final temperature differences
of 19C and 20C. The model with the heat sink
created a larger temperature difference, reaching a
temperature gradient of 22C after thirty seconds with
a final temperature difference of 28C.
The three tests also showed similar trends in the
absolute temperatures of the top and bottom of the
30
20
10
50
0
0
40
20
60
Temperature (C)
Time (s)
Figure 8: The unmodified model data. The top red bar shows the
readings of the warm thermocouple. The bottom blue bar shows
the readings for the cooler thermocouple.
Applications
Thermal management has always been a concern
for computer systems and other electronics.
Computational speeds will always be limited by the
amount of noise produced by computer chips. Since
most noise is generated by waster heat, computer
components and other semiconductor devices operate
Conclusion
Our device worked as a proof of concept device
showing that a thermoacoustic device is possible and
is able to cool air, abet for only a short period of
time. If we were able to build the device with better
materials, such has a more insulating tube, we might
have been able to get better results. In order to create
a working refrigerator we probably would have to
attach a heat sink to the top of the device, thus,
Although this project was specifically
designed to test the effectiveness of thermoacoustic
refrigeration for electronic devices, low-cost, highefficiency cooling devices have broad applications in
commercial industries and households. Research
conducted by Professor Steven Garrett at
Temperature (C)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Time (s)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Time (s)
Figure 10: The modified model data. The top red bar shows the
readings of the warm thermocouple. The bottom blue bar shows
the readings for the cooler thermocouple. As shown in the diagram,
the actual temperature difference was slightly greater in this
design, but not significantly different.
Acknowledgments
The Governors School of Engineering and
Technology for providing this opportunity to be
exposed to conducting small scale research
Professor Stephen Tse, Advisor
Dr Galiang Sun, Graduate student
Megan Smith, Graduate student
Stephanie Chen, GSET counselor
Mr. Anthony Welch, Program director GSET
All the Governors School counselors and staff
Standing Waves. Rod Nave, Georgia State University. Available: http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/standw.html. 17 July 2006.
2
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/carnot.html
3
http://www.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine.htm
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
5
Daniel A. Russell and Pontus Weibull, Tabletop thermoacoustic refrigerator for demonstrations, Am. J. Phys. 70 (12),
December 2002.
6
G. W. Swift, Thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators, Phys. Today 48, 22-28 (1995)
7
http://www.rolexawards.com/laureates/laureate-36-lurie_garrett.html
8
Thermal Management of Computer Systems Using Active Cooling of Pulse Tube Refrigerators. H.H. Jung and S.W.K
Yuan. Available: http://www.yutopian.net/Yuan/papers/Intel.PDF. 17 July 2006.
9
Thermoacoustic Refrigeration for Electronic Devices: Project Outline. Stephen Tse, 2006 Governors School of
Engineering and Technology.
10
Frequently Asked Questions about Thermoacoustics. Penn State Graduate Program in Acoustics. Available:
http://www.acs.psu.edu/users/sinclair/thermal/tafaq.html. 17 July 2006.
11
Chilling at Ben & Jerrys: Cleaner, Greener. Ken Brown. Available:
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