Thermoacoustic heat engines convert heat into useful energy by generating acoustic waves from a heat source that can then be extracted as useful work. These engines are inexpensive, robust, versatile, and capable of extracting energy from a wide variety of heat sources ranging from waste heat from power plants to exhaust heat of vehicles.
In this article, our investigation focuses on using simulation workflows to improve the performance of thermoacoustic engines. We begin with validating the workflows with published data for both traveling wave and standing wave thermoacoustic engines. Following that, we investigate the effect of changing the working fluid and the operating pressure to increase acoustic power.
This study uses a coupled PowerFLOW™ and PowerTHERM™ methodology to simulate the buoyancy-driven flows that generate acoustic pressure waves. Good correlations were observed for both traveling and standing wave thermoacoustic engines. For the design iterations, the most improved design showed large improvements both in absolute power output and relative to the thermodynamic maximum of a Carnot cycle.