Abstract
The velocity and temperature fields in an idealized thermoacoustic refrigerator are analyzed computationally. The numerical model simulates the unsteady mass, momentum, and energy equations in the thin-plate, low-Mach-number limits. Two-dimensional unsteady calculations of the flow field in the neighborhood of the stack and heat exchangers are performed using a vorticity-based scheme for stratified flow. The computations are applied to analyze the effects of heat-exchanger length and position on the performance of the device. The results indicate that the cooling load peaks at a well-defined heat-exchanger length, stack gap, and distance between the heat exchangers and the stack plates.