In:
Applied Physics Letters, AIP Publishing, Vol. 121, No. 20 ( 2022-11-14)
Abstract:
In the context of the current energy crisis, a compact, simple, and reliable cooler is required at small-scale natural gas liquefaction stations. In this paper, a thermoacoustic cooler with a bypass expansion cooling for distributed-temperature heat loads is proposed. The bypass expansion configuration is used to carry out multiple refrigeration processes to achieve distributed cooling temperatures, thus realizing the cascade processes of natural gas liquefaction and improving the liquefaction efficiency. Simulations were carried out to investigate the effect of cooling-stage numbers on relative power consumption efficiency, exergy losses of components as well as axial distributions of key parameters. A proof-of-concept porotype of a two-stage thermoacoustic cooler was built, and the feasibility of the distributed heat loads was experimentally tested. Comparisons with a conventional single-stage thermoacoustic cooler without bypass expansion indicate that the proposed bypass expansion system improves the liquefaction cooling efficiency by a factor of 3.28 at 120 K. Experiments were also carried out to investigate the effect of the bypass expansion, an important factor, by verifying the total number of bypass orifices. Results show that increasing the number of bypass orifices with a more uniform gas distribution can improve the cooling performance of the system. The findings demonstrate the promising prospects of the proposed thermoacoustic cooler in the field of natural gas liquefaction.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0003-6951
,
1077-3118
Language:
English
Publisher:
AIP Publishing
Publication Date:
2022
detail.hit.zdb_id:
211245-0
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1469436-0
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