Thermoacoustic Refrigerator (TAR)

A thermoacoustic refrigerator removes heat from a system using sound waves that create pressure differences inside a tube, forming a temperature gradient across the system. A standing wave is produced by the speaker, with the strongest pressure and temperature oscillations occurring near the antinode. Heat is then transferred through a thermoacoustic stack made of closely spaced parallel plates. The cold heat exchanger absorbs heat from the region being cooled, while the hot heat exchanger removes the heat. The standard engineering practices were followed in the construction of the thermoacoustic refrigerator. First, a basic design based on rigorous calculations was created. Then, that design was built in Onshape CAD and imported into Ansys for wave pressure simulations. Finally, after confirming simulation results, the physical refrigerator was built and tested. We were able to produce a temperature difference of 4 degrees Celsius within 15 minutes of activation. This project was possible thanks to Northrop Grumman and their gift funds to HKN.