Heat Exchangers for Thermoacoustic Refrigerators: Heat Transfer Measurements in Oscillatory Flow

Author(s):  
Cila Herman ◽  
Martin Wetzel
Author(s):  
Xiaoan Mao ◽  
Lei Shi ◽  
Artur J. Jaworski ◽  
Wasan Kamsanam

In thermoacoustic devices, an acoustic wave interacts with internal solid structures such as thermoacoustic stacks (regenerators), to either produce acoustic power due to an imposed temperature gradient, or to produce a heat pumping effect by an acoustic excitation. A cold and hot heat exchangers are usually placed on either side of these internal solid structures to enable heat communication between the thermoacoustic devices and their surroundings. Heat exchangers of various geometries have been extensively studied in steady flows and results are available from a collection of published articles and handbooks. However, there is still a lack of data for heat exchangers in an oscillatory flow, because the interaction of oscillatory flow with the solid boundary is governed by complicated fluid flow and heat transfer processes that are not fully understood. This work is a step towards a better understanding of the heat transfer mechanisms in the acoustically induced oscillatory flow within thermoacoustic systems, in particular obtaining the quantitative description of the heat transfer between heat exchangers and the stack. The assembly of a stack and heat exchangers is replaced by a simplified “stack-less” pair of heat exchangers, in order to focus on the generic heat transfer processes rather than the intricacies of practical thermoacoustic systems. The fins of the hot and cold heat exchangers are kept at constant temperatures by virtue of resistive heating and water cooling, respectively. Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) are used to obtain the temperature and velocity fields around the fins. The heat flux between the heat exchanger fins and the fluid is analyzed phase-by-phase. The time dependent local heat transfer coefficient is obtained from the temperature gradient in the thermal boundary layer. The measurements are conducted at various levels of acoustic excitation in order to study the correlation between the non-dimensional heat transfer coefficient Nu and the Reynolds number. The effect of the flow behaviour at the end of the plates on the temperature field in the region is also studied. It is hoped that this work could lead to a better understanding of heat transfer on short plates in the acoustically induced oscillatory flows.


Author(s):  
M. G. K. Machesa ◽  
L. K. Tartibu ◽  
F. K. Tekweme ◽  
M. O. Okwu

Abstract The characterisation of heat transfer in oscillatory flow of thermo-acoustic based heat exchangers is a cumbersome issue. This is due to the nature of the heat transfer between the gas particles moving along the device at high amplitude and the solid surface of the heat exchangers. In addition, the change in velocity, pressure and temperature induces nonlinear effect. As a result, the performance of heat exchangers negatively affects the efficiency of thermo-acoustic systems. Hence, it is necessary to determine to oscillatory heat transfer coefficient in order to measure the performance of heat exchangers in thermo-acoustic systems. Although it is possible to conduct experimental investigation or perform numerical analysis in order to determine oscillatory heat transfer coefficient, the former requires costly time consuming experiment while the latter involves the resolution of complex mathematical models. In this paper, an improved adaptive neurofuzzy inference system and artificial neural network trained by particle swarm optimization are proposed to predict oscillatory heat transfer coefficient. This paper is intending to provide clarity on the benefits of these new approaches on the computation of geometrical configuration and the working parameters of heat exchangers in thermo-acoustic systems.


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