Onset and damping characteristics of a closed two-phase thermoacoustic engine

•Onset and damping characteristics of a closed two-phase thermoacoustic engine are studied.•A lumped parameter model is developed and verified by the experimental results.•The closed engine can operate at the temperature differences as low as 8.2 K.•Hysteresis phenomenon is found during the onset an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied thermal engineering 2019-09, Vol.160, p.114086, Article 114086
Main Authors: Tan, Jingqi, Wei, Jianjian, Jin, Tao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Closed two-phase thermoacoustic engine
Damping
Damping temperature difference
Heat exchangers
Heat transfer
Hysteresis phenomenon
Low-grade heat source
Onset temperature difference
Optimization
Reservoirs
Resonant frequency
Temperature gradients
Thermoacoustics
Working fluids
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Onset and damping characteristics of a closed two-phase thermoacoustic engine are studied.•A lumped parameter model is developed and verified by the experimental results.•The closed engine can operate at the temperature differences as low as 8.2 K.•Hysteresis phenomenon is found during the onset and damping processes. Onset and damping processes that characterize the transition of a thermoacoustic engine between the stationary and periodic oscillating states have attracted much research effort. In this work, the onset and damping characteristics of a closed two-phase thermoacoustic engine are investigated, where a regenerator is inserted between the cold and hot heat exchangers to reduce the irreversible loss caused by heat transfer. Additionally, a branch resonator, which consists of a load tube and a gas reservoir, is introduced to form the closed system and to adjust the acoustic field. A lumped parameter model is proposed to quantitatively analyze the performance of the thermoacoustic engine. Upon optimization, an onset temperature difference as low as 8.2 °C can be achieved in the experiments with R134a as the working fluid, which is the lowest one ever reported in the literatures. Besides, hysteresis phenomenon is found during the onset and damping processes. The present work aims to provide better understanding of the onset and damping behaviors of a two-phase thermoacoustic engine.
ISSN:1359-4311
1873-5606
DOI:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.114086