Experimental Investigation On Onset And Damping Characteristics Of Thermoacoustic Stirling Engine

Thermoacoustic engine attracts increasing attention from academic and industrial circles, because of its advantages such as without moving parts, using thermal energy as driving source and environmental benignity. A thermoacoustic Stirling engine has been set up by this group for experiments. Considering the importance of the onset and damping behavior for the application of low-grade energy, the emphasis of this thesis work are focused on the onset and damping characteristics of the thermoacoustic system. The present work mainly includes:1. Completed the construction of the experimental thermoacoustic Stirling engine, mainly including the improvement of some components and the setup of data acquisition system. Then some preliminary studies on the experimental equipment have been carried out for overall performance as a base of further study.2. Systematic experiments have been conducted especially on the onset and damping behaviors in depth and detail. A hysteretic loop, which was firstly found in a standing wave thermoacoustic prime mover, is also found in this present thermoacoustic Stirling system. The influencing factors of the loop are analyzed to understand its occurrence mechanism and also the thermoacoustic oscillation.3. The influence of structural factors, including resonance tube length and membrane location, was also observed to discuss the possibility of improving the performance of the thermoacoustic engine by optimizing these factors.