Summary
A travelling‐wave thermoacoustic refrigerator driven by a cascade thermoacoustic engine is evaluated experimentally in this paper. A prototype is developed under the constraint of a low‐cost and less complicated device. In order to reduce the total budget, commercial materials and standard parts are selected, and air at atmospheric pressure is used as working fluid in the system. The thermoacoustic coupled engine‐refrigerator system consists of 1 standing‐wave unit, 1 travelling‐wave unit, and 1 travelling‐wave refrigerator arranged in a linear configuration. A resonator‐tube is connected at each end of the thermoacoustic core. The effects of the length and hydraulic radius of the regenerator in the refrigerator on the cooling performance are investigated at different levels of input power. In the experimental results, the maximum temperature difference of 17.6°C was realised at the no‐load condition. The maximum coefficient of performance relative to Carnot (COPR) of 2.4% was accomplished at the cooling load of 13 W.