Mishra Vipul Kumar et.al; International Journal of Advance Research and Development
© 2018, www.IJARND.com All Rights Reserved Page | 114
(Volume3, Issue4)
Available online at: www.ijarnd.com
Study and prototype of the thermoacoustic
refrigerator
Vipul Kumar Mishra
1
, Vikrant Kumar
2
, Sachin Kushwaha
3
, Hitesh Shrama
4
, O. P. Umrao
5
1,2,3,4
Students, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
5
Assistant Professor, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
ABSTRACT
A thermo acoustic refrigerator (TAR) includes an acoustic wave generation device arranged directed to the channel of a hollow
tube, and a stack provided at a pre-determined position in the channel of the tube. A temperature difference is obtained across
the stack by an acoustic wave emitted from the acoustic wave generation device. The working fluid used is air. This work
examined the performance of thermo acoustic refrigeration, which is the theory of using sound waves to cool the air. The main
aim of this work is to design and construct a small thermo acoustic refrigerator from inexpensive and readily available parts and
analyzed the results. The design includes dimension of stack, selection of acoustic driver, and acoustic resonator. The
experiments showed that while thermo acoustic cooling was possible, high efficiency was beyond our reach due to materials
restrictions. We obtained the temperature difference of ℃ for constructing this simple device. However, from these limitations
devised several proposals for increasing the performance of thermo acoustic refrigerators. Experiments show the performance
can improve by using a better material such as high heat carrying capacity materials and the working fluids like inert gases.
Keywords: TAR, Acoustic wave generation, Inert gases.
1. INTRODUCTION
In 19
th
century, modern refrigeration technologies were introduced to world. In the last few decades the use of them has increased
significantly. Today mostly cooling is achieved by vapour compression systems that use a significant refrigerant. In recent year, it
has been discovered that traditional refrigerators affects the environment adversely and are expansive too. So to avoid the use of
hazardous materials the idea of thermo acoustic refrigerator was developed [1]. Refrigeration relies on two major thermodynamic
principles. First, a fluid’s temperature rises when compressed and falls when expanded. Second, when two substances are placed in
direct contact heat will flow from hotter substance to colder one. The model constructed for this project employed inexpensive,
easily available materials. Although the model did not achieve the original goal of refrigeration, the experiment suggests that thermo
acoustic refrigerators could one day be viable replacements for conventional refrigerators. Thermo acoustic is based on the principle
that sound waves are pressure waves.
2. THERMO ACOUSTICS
Thermo-acoustic is a branch of acoustics and thermodynamics, which studies the movement of heat by sound waves. Acoustics
deals with the study of effect sound transfer, like pressure changes and motion oscillations, whereas thermo-acoustic deals with
temperature oscillations [2]. And thermo acoustic refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses sound waves in order to provide the cooling
so in this refrigerator the mechanical work is done by sound waves.
So the compression and expansion of molecule is taking place with the help of the pressure waves of the sound. One of the important
fundamental sciences behind thermo acoustic refrigerator is thermodynamics, in specific the study of heat transfer. The ideal gas
law states that, PV= ρRT
Where P, ρ, and T are the pressure, density, and temperature of the gas, respectively, and the R is the gas constant (for air R=287
J/kg·K).This law states that changes in gas pressure is directly proportional to changes in temperature, as the pressure of gas
increases, the gas temperature also increases. [5]