Design and analysis of thermoacoustic air source heat pump water heaters

Abstract

Thermoacoustic air-to-water air source heat pumps (TAWASHP) are the eco-friendly, simple, compressor less, low cost and likely looking future substitute for the existing compressor-based heat pumps. In this work, the design optimization of the 1-kW TAWASHP with helium for the temperature difference of 15 to 70 K for pumping heat from the atmospheric air to water using the linear thermoacoustic concepts was discussed. The optimized design can fit for both cooling and water heating applications without wasting the heat rejection to the surrounding atmosphere, rather supplied to the insulated hot water tank. The optimized one-fourth wavelength resonator TAWASHP shows the coefficient of performance of 1.1 to 2.34. The theoretical results are validated with the DeltaEC software results, and the results are in concurrence with each other. The DeltaEC predicts the TAWASHP can supply 1.55 to 3.35 kW of heat to water, which is equivalent to 37.3 to 80.3 kWh of heat energy per day.