A traveling-wave thermoacoustic cooler designed using particle swarm optimization.

This study presents the optimization of a traveling-wave thermoacoustic cooler driven by an acoustic driver. The cooler consists of an acoustic driver, a tapered tube, a straight tube, a looped tube, and a regenerator. Its performance critically depends on the characteristics of the straight tube, looped tube, and regenerator. However, the parameters of these components have not previously been optimized simultaneously. In this work, five design parameters were selected for optimization: the lengths of the straight and looped tubes, the length and position of the regenerator, and the radius of the regenerator flow channels. The performance of the cooler was calculated using a coupled numerical model that integrates thermoacoustic theory (including nonlinear acoustic losses) with a damped spring-mass model and an LCR circuit model of the acoustic driver. By combining this comprehensive model with the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method, the five parameters were optimized. A prototype traveling-wave thermoacoustic cooler using atmospheric air as the working gas was then constructed and tested based on the optimized parameters. Experimental results showed that when a √ 2 × 15 V sinusoidal voltage was applied, the acoustic driver consumed 13 W of electrical power (𝐸𝑒𝑙) to generate 6 W of acoustic power (𝑊𝑖𝑛), producing 7 W of cooling power (𝑄𝐶 ). In comparison, the numerical predictions for 𝐸𝑒𝑙, 𝑊𝑖𝑛, and 𝑄𝐶 were 13 W, 6 W, and 11 W, respectively. Although the experimentally obtained cooling power was lower than the numerical prediction, the performance of the prototype exceeded that of previously reported thermoacoustic coolers operating with atmospheric air.