CFD Simulation of the Double-acting Thermoacoustic Prime Mover
Thermoacoustic engines provide a new approach to efficiently utilize solar,biomass,industrial waste heat,and other low-grade heat sources.A double-acting thermoacoustic generator consists of several identical generator units.Within each unit,a thermoacoustic prime mover is coupled with a linear motor where the motor works under double-acting mode.Compared with the traditional thermoacoustic generator,double-acting thermoacoustic generator has the advantage of higher power output as well as higher specific power output.While compared with the double-acting Stirling engine,thermoacoustic engine has a thermal buffer tube and a second cold heat exchanger between the hot heat exchanger and the expander.So the expander can work under room temperature which means more reliable and more stable.A 6×1kWe U-shaped structure using two sets of three-cylinder double-acting thermoacoustic generator has been designed in order to utilize solar power as the heat source.The hot heat exchanger constitutes of 19 thin tubes with working gas oscillating within.In order to test and optimize the performance of the engine system,a test rig consists of a linear compressor,an expander and the thermoacoustic prime mover unit has been built to model one single unit of the double-acting system.Commercial software FLUENT has also been used to simulate the thermoacoustic unit in order to predict and improve the performance of the engine.Simulation shows that the loss in the heater pipes and the jets injected into the thermal buffer tube are the main factors affecting the efficiency.Optimization recommendations have been provided.
CFD simulation Double-acting Solar Power Thermal buffer tube Thermoacoustic engine
Yanyan Chen Ruidong Zhao Zhanghua Wu Wei Dai Ercang Luo
Key Laboratory of Cryogenics,Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,CAS(Chinese Academy of Sci University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,CAS(Chinese A
国际会议
桂林
英文
1-11
2013-07-16（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）