Abstract
Stirling-like thermoacoustic generators are external combustion engines that provide useful acoustic power in the absence of moving parts with high reliability and respect for the environment. The study of these systems involves a great complexity since the parameters that describe them, besides being numerous, present a high degree of coupling between them. This implies a great difficulty in characterizing the effects of any parametric variation on the performance of these devices. Due to the huge amount of data to analyze, the experiments and simulations required to address the problem involve high investments in time and resources, sometimes unaffordable. This article presents, how a sensitivity analysis applying the response surface methodology can be applied to optimize the feedback branch of a thermoacoustic Stirling-like engine. The proposed study is made by evaluating the comparative relevance of seven design variables. The dimensional reduction process identifies three significant factors: the frequency of operation, the internal diameter of compliance, and the inertance. Subsequently, the Response Surface Methodology is applied to assess the interaction effects of these three design parameters on the efficiency of the thermoacoustic engine, and an improvement of 6% has been achieved. The enhanced values given by the response surface methodology are validated using the DeltaEC software.
Highlights
It is interesting to point out that only between 12% and 30% of the energy in a vehicle fuel tank is transformed in energy that moves the car along the road [1] (Figure 1)
The temperature of the exhaust gasses very much depends on the engine operating conditions and could vary from 400 ◦ C to 650 ◦ C at full load as indicated in [5], but still these conditions offer a good potential for energy harvesting
The negative sign of factor C impacts on the response, according to the predictions of the previous section. It implies that the diameter must be reduced to increase the thermoacoustic efficiency, as the objective requires
Summary
It is interesting to point out that only between 12% and 30% of the energy in a vehicle fuel tank is transformed in energy that moves the car along the road [1] (Figure 1). 60% is lost through the exhaust pipe. For this reason, several technologies aiming at recovering this energy are actively being investigated, among others are organic Rankine cycle (ORC) [2], thermoacoustic. Two heat exchangers are required, the hot heat exchanger (HHX) which is connected to the exhaust gas flow and provides thermal energy to the TA-SLiCE and a cold heat exchanger (CHX). The temperature of the exhaust gasses very much depends on the engine operating conditions and could vary from 400 ◦ C to 650 ◦ C at full load as indicated in [5], but still these conditions offer a good potential for energy harvesting
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