Study of a coaxial thermoacoustic-Stirling cooler

A coaxial thermoacoustic-Stirling cooler is built and performance measurements are performed. The cooler uses the acoustic power produced by a linear motor to pump heat through a regenerator from a cold heat exchanger to an ambient one. The cooler incorporates a compact acoustic network to create the traveling-wave phasing necessary for the operation in a Stirling cycle. The network has a coaxial geometry instead of the toroidal one usually used in such systems. The design, construction and performance measurements of the cooler are presented. A measured coefficient of performance relative to Carnot of 25% and a low temperature of −54 °C are achieved by the cooler. This efficiency surpasses the performance of the most efficient standing-wave cooler by almost a factor of two.