Theoretical And Experimental Investigation On Standing Wave Thermoacoustic Engine

Thermoacoustic engine is an absolutely new type of engine. It hasn't any moving part so it can work for a long period without maintenance. Waste steam and solar energy can be used as its heating-resources so that it has many applications especially for the places having no electricity supply. We use the self-built thermoacoustic engine to drive the pulse tube refrigerator. It is a new type of refrigerator and will have many applications in the future.After reviewing the history and recent developments of the research on thermoacoustics, and introducing the classical thermoacoustic theory, we carry out the following investigations:1) A Data Acquisition System applied in pulse tube refrigerator driven by thermoacoustic engine experimental equipment is established. It is simple, efficient, precise and maneuverable. It well satisfies the measurement and data acquisition requirement of our experiments.2) The standing wave thermoacoustic engine connected with an RC (resistance and capacitance) load has been numerically simulated with linear thermoacoustics, and the relative experiments were carried out. They both show that the maximum acoustic power output can be transferred to the load while the acoustic resistance of the RC load equals its acoustic capacitance impedance.3) The defects of the used hot heat exchanger now were pointed out. According to the method of TASFE—the Time-Average Steady-Flow Equivalent, a new type hot heat exchanger was designed.4) "Acoustic amplifier" is a pipe whose open end was connected to the thermoacoustic engine and the other end was closed. The principle of the "acoustic amplifier" was discussed. The numerically simulated results and the experimental results both show that when "Acoustic amplifier" with right length was used, the bigger pressure amplitude and pressure ratio would be obtained in the closed end of the "acoustic amplifier" compared with the open end. However, when we choose the length of "acoustic amplifier", we need to consider more factors; we don't just fix the length at one fourth wave length.In the end, the summarization of the dissertation is also given.