A numerical method of regenerator Original Research Article

A numerical method for regenerators is introduced in this paper. It is not only suitable for the regenerators in cryocoolers and Stirling engines, but also suitable for the stacks in acoustic engines and the pulse tubes in pulse tube refrigerators. The numerical model is one dimensional periodic unsteady flow model. The numerical method is based on the control volume concept with the implicitly solve method. The iteration acceleration method, which considers the one-dimensional periodic unsteady problem as the steady two-dimensional problem, is used for decreasing the calculation time. By this method, the regenerator in an inertance tube pulse tube refrigerator was simulated. The result is useful for understanding how the inefficiency of the regenerator changes with the inertance effect.