Characterization of the frictional losses and heat transfer of oscillatory viscous flow through wire-mesh regenerators

In this paper, new relations for calculating heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of oscillatory flow through wire-mesh screen regenerator such as Darcy permeability, Forchheimer's inertial coefficient, and heat transfer area per unit volume, as a function of the wire diameter are presented. According to the derived relations, thinner wires have higher pressure drop and higher heat transfer rate. The relations are applicable for all regenerative cryocoolers. Embedding the new relations into a numerical model, three Stirling-type orifice pulse tube cryocoolers with three regenerators different in length and diameter but same volume in a variety of wire diameters, have been modeled. The results achieved by the model reveal that the local heat transfer coefficient decreases with increase of the wire diameter and the length-to-diameter ratio. In addition, it was shown that the mean absolute gas-solid wire temperature difference is a linear function of wire diameter in the range investigated. The results show that for larger length-to-diameter ratios, Forchheimer's effect will dominate frictional losses, and the variations of the frictional losses are proportional to the inverse of the wire diameter. Wire diameter has been optimized to maximize the coefficient of performance of the cryocooler. Shorter regenerators have thinner optimum wires.