Numerical simulation of a thermodynamic refrigerator

Abstract

A thermoacoustic device consists of two main components: (1) a resonance tube where the ow is characterized 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 eeort focuses on the development of numerical schemes which overcome this scale disparity in an eecient manner. Two approaches are discussed in the paper. The rst is a multiple-pressure-variable 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.