COUPLING RESEARCH IN THE THERMOACOUSTICALLY DRIVEN PULSE TUBE COOLER

For coupling between the thermoacoustic engine and pulse tube cooler, an acoustic transmission line model is built and simulated based on linear thermoacoustic theory. The simulations shows that with the acoustic transmission line, the input pressure amplitude of the cooling system can be amplified and more acoustic power can be transmitted from the thermoacoustic engine to the cooler, which can improve the performance of the pulse tube cooler. The computational results also reveal that the performance of the thermoacoustic engine can be improved by acoustic transmission line with appropriate length and diameter. In experiments, a linear pulse tube cooler driven by a miniature thermoacoustic engine is constructed and tested. Good agreements are obtained between the theoretical analysis and experimental results. This research is instructive for comprehensively understanding the coupling mechanism in the thermoacoustically driven pulse tube coolers.