Structural optimization of resonance tubes for a looped thermoacoustic engine with multiple heat sources

Abstract

The advantage of coupling different heat sources with each thermoacoustic core unit in a three-stage looped traveling-wave thermoacoustic system is used to solve the application problem of multiple waste heat sources. The effects of the heat-side heat exchanger temperature, the resonance tube radius and length, and their interaction terms on the thermoacoustic thermodynamic properties are analyzed using response surface methodology on the premise that thermoacoustic core structures remain unchanged. The results indicate that prediction deviations for acoustic power, thermoacoustic conversion efficiency, and relative Carnot efficiency are within ±9%, ±3%, and ±3%, respectively. The acoustic power can be improved by increasing the hot-side heat exchanger temperature and the resonance tube radius. Under the same heat source conditions, the acoustic power, thermoacoustic conversion efficiency, and relative Carnot efficiency of the optimized thermoacoustic system show the highest increases of 49.63%, 4.82%, and 3.20%, respectively, compared to the non-optimized thermoacoustic system. The optimized variable-temperature system not only has higher thermodynamic efficiency compared with the optimized constant-temperature system but also can realize the complementary regulation among the thermoacoustic engine units by matching decreasing-gradient variable temperature and increasing-gradient variable radii and effectively broaden the working temperature range of the looped thermoacoustic system.