W. Patrick Arnott
Desert Res. Inst., Univ. Nevada, P.O. Box 60220, Reno, NV 89506
Richard Raspet
Univ. of Mississippi, University, MS 38677
Previous heat-driven thermoacoustic refrigerators have used a design that compromises the performance of both the prime mover sound source and the refrigerator. The prime mover and refrigerator were placed next to each other in the resonator, and neither could be placed at the optimal performance location; otherwise, the efficiency or output of the one placed well away from the optimal location would be low. A radial wave refrigerator in a wide cylindrical resonator driven by a plane-wave prime mover from a narrow resonator allows for a relatively compact design, and more importantly, for optimization of the performance of both elements. Results of numerical analysis for the radial wave refrigerator driven by a plane-wave prime mover will be presented. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]