Numerical simulation of a thermodynamic refrigerator

Abstract

A thermoacoustic device consists of two main components: (1) a resonance tube where the ow i s c haracterized by length scales of the order of the acoustic wavelength, and (2) a stack of plates which are separated by distances much smaller than the acoustic wavelength. This e ort focuses on the development o f n umerical schemes which o vercome this scale disparity i n an e cient manner. Two approaches are discussed in the paper. T h e r s t i s a m ultiple-pressurevariable approach that is suitable for the simulation of resonance tube acoustics and for analyzing interactions between heat addition and long waves. The second is a multi-dimensional model of the stack region which is based on fast solution of the zero-Mach-number conservation equations.