Combination of thermoacoustic heat dissipation with oscillating convection: A novel cooling method

Abstract Thermoacoustic devices including prime movers and refrigerators provide a potential solution to the electronic cooling technology which hinders the development of highly integrated electronic devices. However, the density of thermoacoustic heat flow is inadequate for the requirements of electronic cooling. In this work, thermoacoustic heat dissipation coupled with oscillating convection is investigated by computational fluid dynamics simulations. The results show that thermoacoustic heat dissipation has a similar working mechanism compared with thermoacoustic refrigeration, but the heat dissipation effect and heat flux of heat exchangers in a thermoacoustic heat dissipation system are affected greatly by the temperature gradient, fluid oscillating amplitude and length of stack. The proposed cooling method coupling thermoacoustic heat dissipation and oscillating convection is superior to the oscillating convection alone or thermoacoustic heat dissipation alone.