Numerical investigation of a looped-tube traveling-wave thermoacoustic generator with a bypass pipe

Abstract

In this paper, based on the recent development of looped-tube thermoacoustic engine with a bypass pipe, we propose and numerically demonstrate a travelling wave thermoacoustic electric generator using this configuration. It essentially employs a one wave-length travelling-wave acoustic resonator which has low acoustic losses. The engine branch consists of a compliance, a inertance tube, an engine core, and an alternator. An ultra-compliant alternator (i.e., a sub-woofer) is installed in the acoustic compliance section where the local acoustic impedance is relatively low but the cross sectional area is big. The numerical simulations demonstrate its working principle, and show that it can potentially achieve comparable performance as other types of travelling wave thermoacoustic electric generators.