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Abstract
Oscillatory ow heat transfer at the heat exchanger of the thermoacoustic refrigeration system was studied. The study identied sig-
nicant factors that inuence this heat transfer as well as the construction of the system. The results from the experimental study were
correlated in terms of Nusselt number, Prandtl number and Reynolds number to obtain a useful new correlation for the heat transfer at
the heat exchangers. Results show that using straight ow heat transfer correlations for analyses and design of this system could result in
signicant errors. Results also show the relationship between the oscillatory heat transfer coecient at the heat exchangers, the mean
pressure and frequency of oscillation. Higher mean pressures result in greater heat transfer coecients if the thermoacoustic refrigerating
system operates at the corresponding resonant frequency. However, a compromise has to be reached to accommodate construction of the
stack.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Nomenclature
A area T temperature
a speed of sound Tb base temperature of the n
cp specic heat at constant pressure Tm mean temperature
D diameter Tp period of the acoustic oscillation
Dh hydraulic diameter T1 gas free stream or time-averaged temperature
Dr drive ratio u velocity
f frequency of oscillation x axial coordinate, distance
HX heat exchanger xc length of the heat exchanger
h heat transfer coecient y axial coordinate
K wave number a thermal diusivity
k thermal conductivity D change
L length of n dk thermal penetration depth
l displacement dv viscous penetration depth
M Mach number h temperature dierence
Nu Nusselt number k wavelength
P perimeter l dynamic viscosity
P0 dynamic pressure amplitude m kinematic viscosity
Pr Prandtl number q density
q heat transfer rate qm mean density
Re Reynolds number x angular frequency
laminar reciprocating ow would be shorter than in unidi- performance of microchannel heat exchangers in a thermoa-
rectional steady ow and speculated that the velocity pro- coustic cooling system. Calculation methods were devel-
les of a reciprocating ow might not change much in the oped for evaluating the oscillating ow heat transfer
entrance region because the velocity proles of an oscilla- coecients. Results from the study were correlated in terms
tory ow tend to be atter than those of a steady ow. of the Colburn-j factor and compared with results from
Iwabuchi and Kanzaka [15] performed experiments to steady ow measurements and predictions from boundary
investigate the heat transfer on a reciprocating ow and layer conduction model. The results showed that the bound-
presented the heat transfer data in terms of piston speed, ary layer model did not accurately predict the heat transfer
mean pressure and the phase dierence between the oppos- coecients and the inuence of Reynolds number on heat
ing pistons. However, the study did not attempt to corre- transfer performance.
late the heat transfer data in terms of dimensionless In this research, the convective heat transfer coecient
parameters. Tijani et al. [16] designed, constructed and outside the heat exchanger of the thermoacoustic refrigera-
tested a thermoacoustic refrigerator. tion system was studied. The technique of electroplating
Poese and Garrett [17] measured the performance of a and chemical removal was utilized in the construction of
thermoacoustic refrigerator driven at relatively high ampli- the heat exchanger to achieve the desired conguration
tudes. For the heat exchanger performance model, the study and n arrangement. Based on the experimental measure-
used a modied steady-state correlation obtained from esti- ments made, a new heat transfer correlation was developed
mated time-averaged convective heat transfer coecient. and important factors that inuence the heat transfer at the
Mozurkewich [18] reported on the heat transfer from trans- heat exchangers were identied. Nusselt number was
verse tubes adjacent to a thermoacoustic stack. The main related to the thermal property parameters, geometrical
objective was to test the usefulness of the so-called time- parameters and operating conditions. The correlation
average steady-ow equivalent (TASFE) approximation. developed was compared to a related correlation in the
This approximation assumes that the heat transfer in an literature.
acoustic standing wave with zero mean ow is the same as
that obtained by using the average of the corresponding 2. Summary of the system design and construction of the heat
steady-ow correlation over a sinusoidal distribution of exchanger
gas speeds. The heat exchanger congurations used con-
sisted mainly of parallel tubes mounted in closed-end hous- Fig. 1 is a schematic of the thermoacoustic refrigeration
ing. Also, Mozurkewich [19] developed a one-dimensional system. The major components are the acoustic driver, the
model for transverse heat exchange in thermoacoustic stack, the heat exchangers, the resonator and the back vol-
pores. However, comparison with experiments was not ume system rst introduced by Tijani et al. [16]. The auxil-
done for the model. Paek et al. [20] investigated the thermal iary components of the system include the instrumentation
E.C. Nsofor et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 24352442 2437
Table 1
Some design and operating parameters of the system at STP
Property or parameter Symbol Value
Gas thermal conductivity k 0.146 W/m K
Gas density q 0.8845 kg/m3
Speed of sound in gas a 978.1 m/s
Gas specic heat cp 5193 J/kg K
Gas dynamic viscosity l 188 107 N s/m2
Gas Prandtl number Pr 0.667
Gas thermal diusivity a 3.19 105 m2/s
Drive ratio Dr 0.02
Fig. 1. Schematic of the thermoacoustic refrigeration system. Mean temperature drop DTm 50 K
Wave number K 2.247/m
Fig. 2. Heat exchanger showing the geometry and arrangement of the ns.
exchanger geometry and arrangement of the ns. This heat This equation can be written as
exchanger was located at the hot side of the resonator. An dqx
electrical resistance heater arrangement was located at the qx hP DxT 1 T qx Dx 7
dx
cold side to supply the variable load for the refrigerating
system. With substitutions for the heat transfer rate and rearrange-
ment, this equation yields
3. Heat transfer at the heat exchanger d2 h
m2 h 0 8
dx2
Fig. 3 shows a schematic of the heat transfer at the n of
where h = T(x) T1 and m2 hP :
the heat exchanger. Fig. 3(a) shows a single n of the heat kA
Solution of Eq. (8) yields
exchanger and Fig. 3(b) illustrates the control volume for
the heat balance. The optimum length lc of the heat exchan- h C 1 emx C 2 emx 9
ger should be equal to the peak-to-peak displacement of
where C1, and C2 are constants determined by using the
the working gas and is given by [16]:
following boundary conditions.
P0
lc SinKl 5 1: At x 0; h T b T 1 hb 10
axqm
L dh
Energy balance on a small element of the n of the heat 2: At x ; 0 11
exchanger shown as a shaded portion in Fig. 3(a) and 2 dx
shown magnied in Fig. 3(b) can be represented by the Using the boundary conditions given in Eqs. (10) and (11),
equation the equation for the temperature distribution along the n
is obtained as
qx qconvection qxDx 6
T b T 1 p
hP xL
p
hP
T x T 1 p e kA e kA x 12
hP
1 e kAL
Except the heat transfer coecient h, all the variables in
Eq. (12) could be determined or measured directly from
experiments.
400 W, connected to an amplier and an audio generator 10 bars in the resonator. The gas was charged after evacu-
produced the required sound waves in the resonator. The ation and care was taken to do it as gently as possible to
temperature, pressure and ow measurements were made avoid damage to the speaker cone. The system was oper-
via thermocouples, pressure transducers, and ow meters ated at dierent frequencies for various mean pressures
respectively. A pressure transducer was used to measure and h was determined for each case using Eq. (12). This
the dynamic pressure. It was mounted on the aluminum equation was applied to all the ns having dierent lengths.
ange by threading and O-ring sealing. Thermocouples To reduce precision error, the data acquisition system
were installed at the base of the ns (shown in the diagram took several readings for each data and averaged them
as location No. 7 and No. 10) to measure base temperature out. The uncertainties were estimated at 95% condence
Tb. Thermocouples which measure the temperature distri- level according to the methods described by Coleman and
bution T(x) along the length of the n were mounted at Steele [21] and Moat [22]. The experimental result R,
variable locations from the base of the n (shown at this which is a function of N number of variables, Vi was
point as location No. 9, No. 12 and No. 13). Although described as
the temperatures at the ns were taken at the center of
R RV 1 ; V 2 ; V 3 ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ::; V N
the thin ns, the locations were from the center to the base
of the ns. Thermocouples were also located in the gas ow 13
(shown as No. 8 and No. 11) away from the n to measure
If the bias uncertainty BR in the measurement of each indi-
T1. The thermocouples measuring the ambient tempera-
vidual variable is independent of the bias limit in each of
tures between the ns were mounted in between the two
the other measured variables then
ns in such a way that the leads did not touch any of the
ns. All the thermocouples were Type T, capable of mea- X
N
5. Results
Nu
2
best parameters that minimize the sum of the squares of
dierences between the dependent variables in the equation 1
and the observation. The result obtained was
0
Nu 0:61Re0:31 Pr0:11 18 15 25 35 45 55
p Re
The RMS velocity dened as urms u= 2 was used for
obtaining the Reynolds number for the oscillating ow. Fig. 7. Comparison of the oscillatory ow heat transfer correlations from
The hydraulic diameter for the ow gap in the heat exchan- this study with the correlation for the closest straight ow study.
ger formed by the spacing between the ns attached to the
circumferential water-bearing tube was used as the charac-
teristic length for calculating the Nusselt number values. 4 bars 5 bars 6 bars 7 bars
The ow velocity was calculated using the equation [16]: 110
h_corr (W/m K)
qa
90
where x is the distance between the diaphragm of the
acoustic driver at equilibrium and the hot side heat exchan- 80
ger. The Reynolds number was calculated using the
70
equation
300 350 400 450
qurms Dh f (Hz)
Re 20
l Fig. 8. Heat transfer coecient (h) versus frequency (f).
Fig. 5 shows a plot of the heat transfer coecient (h) versus
Reynolds number (Re), (experiment data compared with h range of Reynolds number). By combining the bias and
generated from this new correlation prediction for the same precision limits with experimental data at 95% condence
level, the maximum uncertainty in the measurement of
h_exp h_corr the heat transfer coecient h was determined to be
140 4.4%. As described in Section 4, the bias and precision
120 errors in the determination of the gas temperature as well
h (W/m K)
100 as the other variables that aect the data reduction equa-
2