The influence of some structural factors

i.e. the nozzle style

relative gas charge time on the flow in and the performance of pressure wave refrigerator are studied theoretically and experimentally in this paper. The results show that the strength of incident shock wave is the strongest when using the contraction nozzle

follows by using the laval nozzle

and is the weakest when using the uniform nozzle when the ratio of the expansion ε is from 2.0 to 12.0. Thus the cooling effect of pressure wave refrigerator is the strongest when using the contraction nozzle. The maximun refrigerating efficiency ηmax is increased first and then decreased when the relative gas charge time τ is increased. The optimum relative gas charge time τ is about 0.06 when the ratio of the expansion ε is 4

the ratio of length to diameter L/d is 400 and the relative depth of the jet hole in gas distribution is 0.55. When τ>0.075

the optimum pulsing frequency (fopt) is on the second peak of the refrigerating efficiency

while fopt is on the third peak of the refrigerating efficiency when τ>0.075.