Experimental improvements to the acoustic expander with applications to cryogenic refrigeration
Abstrak
Abstract The acoustic expander is an innovative cryogenic component that uses pressure waves for work transfer as part of a continuous flow, recuperative cycle refrigerator. This expander uses passive reed-valves coupled to an acoustic resonator to produce refrigeration. The passive reed-valves are pressure-controlled by the imposed, static pressure difference across the expander and the natural oscillating pressure in the resonator. The resonator is a series of tubes and cones. The practical implications of these simple components are that the acoustic expander does not require controlled valving or close-tolerance sliding seals at low-temperature, unlike existing piston- or turbo-expanders. This work compares two resonator designs, a harmonic resonator and a non-harmonic resonator. The non-harmonic resonator is excited by a single-frequency allowing for operation at an expansion pressure-ratio of 2.4. These expanders are expected to be useful in medium-scale refrigeration applications that are not well served by current small-scale Stirling cryocoolers or large-scale turbo-expander refrigerators.
Penulis (4)
Jacob Adams
Nathaniel O’Connor
Matthew Jones
John Brisson
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2025
- Bahasa
- en
- Sumber Database
- CrossRef
- DOI
- 10.1088/1757-899x/1327/1/012146
- Akses
- Open Access ✓