Numerical Simulation and Experimental Developments of Thermoacoustic Engine (TAE) and Thermoacoustic Refrigerator (TAR) and the Potential of their System Integration

Abstract

The area of thermoacoustic technology has observed strong development since its inception in the last several decades. It is also receiving a renounced interest as clean and low carbon technology when integrated to solar or waste heat resources. In this work, a review of the fundamental of the technology will be presented followed by a thorough, up to date literature review on the experimental and numerical studies conducted in this field. The research gaps in this area are presented with a methodology plan on how to fill some of these literature gaps. The main obstacle standing in the way of the commercialization of the thermoacoustic devices is their low efficiency. The aim of this work is to investigate the parameters that affect the efficiency of the thermoacoustic engine TAE and come up with optimized parameters for an efficient design of the thermoacoustic stack. Experimental and numerical analysis are carried out to develop the desired TAE device. The experimental stack is created using the Powder bed fusion 3D printing technique and the experimental analysis are used to validate the numerical model. The development of TAE is further supported by numerical analysis where a CFD based model that is governed by Navier-stokes equations for transient, non-isothermal flow laws is developed for Thermoacoustic engine using Ansys/fluent. Static pressure and axial velocity are monitored at different points inside the resonator and for different stack positions to obtain the acoustic power and hence the numerical efficiency. Experimental and numerical results are discussed and compared, and a conclusion providing the path forward in this area is presented.

Date of Award	Dec 2022
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Isam Janajreh (Supervisor)