Mean temperature profile at the entrance of a thermoacoustic stacked screen heat exchanger

S. Bühler¹ - D. Wilcox² - J. P. Oosterhuis¹ - T. H. van der Meer¹

¹ Thermal Engineering, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217 -- 7500AE Enschede, The Netherlands
² Chart Inc.-Qdrive, Troy, New York 12180, USA

Abstract
In thermoacoustic devises, the thermoacoustic effect occurs in the regenerator placed between two heat exchangers. The entrance effects of such heat exchanger are investigated with two computational fluid dynamics (CFD) test cases. The first CFD test case models an ideal heat exchanger adjacent to an open space. The influence of heat conduction on the mean temperature is shown. The second test case models two screens of a stacked screen heat exchanger as two inline cylinders. Three different openings are investigated. The mean temperature profile is compared to the numerical solution of a reduced model equation. It is shown that viscous effects do not influence the mean temperature profile at low amplitude. Figs 6, Refs 15.