Evaluation of thermal efficiency and energy conversion of thermoacoustic Stirling engines

Abstract

Abstract Thermodynamic cycle transferring heat and work was executed in thermoacoustic engines, when the acoustic resonators substituted the moving mechanical components of the traditional heat engines. Based on the traveling-wave phasing and reversible heat transfer, thermoacoustic Stirling engines could achieve 70% of the Carnot efficiency theoretically, if the inevitable viscous dissipation in resonators was also counted as exported power. It should be pointed out an error on this efficiency evaluation in the previous literatures. More than 70% of the acoustic power production was often consumed by the side-branch resonator that was the essential configuration to build up a thermoacoustic Stirling engine. According to the simulation results and some experimental data, the actual available acoustic power consumed by the acoustic loads was restricted by the operating peak-to-mean pressure ratio, i.e. | p 1 / p m |. When the peak-to-mean pressure ratio operated on 4–6.5%, the thermal efficiency and power density of the available acoustic power reached higher levels. But the available acoustic power would approach zero when | p 1 / p m | attained 10%. It was approved that the turbulence oscillation occurred on the higher | p 1 / p m | (usually >4%) was the main reason of the excess dissipation in the side-branch resonator. This character of the available power limited the wide application of thermoacoustic Stirling engines. The evaluation of thermal efficiency and energy conversion also indicated the improving direction of thermoacoustic Stirling engines. Generators driven by the thermoacoustic Stirling engines were an effective way, due to the elimination of the side-branch resonator. To achieve a high power density and a high pressure ratio on the higher available power efficiency level, the standing-wave thermoacoustic engines might outvie the traveling-wave thermoacoustic engines. To enjoy the best features of standing-wave engines and traveling-wave engines simultaneously, exploiting multi-stage thermoacoustic engines, such as cascade engines, etc., would be an important research direction.