Experimental Investigation on the Performance of the Air-based Standing Wave Thermoacoustic Refrigerator using Heat Pipe as Heat Exchangers

The coefficient of performance (COP) and relative coefficient of performance (COPR) of the standing wave thermoacoustic refrigerator (SWTAR) were investigated. The components of the SWTAR are a resonator tube, a stainless-steel bowl-shaped resonator cone, a commercial loudspeaker, a spiral stack, a cold side heat exchanger (CSHX) with miniature heat pipes (MHPs) and a hot side heat exchanger (HSHX). An operating frequency of 163 Hz was used in this study, with an acoustic power (AP) supply of 10, 20 and 30 W. Cooling loads were heat provided from a thermoelectric module (TEM) by joining the hot side of the TEM to the copper heat absorber and transferring heat to the CSHX through MHPs. The COP of the SWTAR increased with increasing cooling load. The slopes of the COP curves decreased with increasing AP. The COPR of the SWTAR increased with increasing cooling load until it was approximately 30% of AP.