Experimental Study on a Standing Wave Thermoacoustic Prime Mover with Air Working Gas at Various Pressures

Thermoacoustic prime mover is an energy conversion device which converts thermal energy into acoustic work (sound wave). The advantages of this machine are that it can work with air as the working gas and does not produce any exhaust gases, so that it is environmentally friendly. This paper describes an experimental study on a standing wave thermoacoustic prime mover with air as the working gas at various pressures from 0.05 MPa to 0.6 MPa. We found that 0.2 MPa is the optimum pressure which gives the lowest onset temperature difference of 355 °C. This pressure value would be more preferable in harnessing low grade heat sources to power the thermoacoustic prime mover. In addition, we find that the lowest onset temperature difference is obtained when r_h /δ_k ratio is 2.85, where r _h is the hydraulic radius of the stack and δ_k is the thermal penetration depth of the gas. Moreover, the pressure amplitude of the sound wave is significantly getting larger from 2.0 kPa to 9.0 kPa as the charged pressure increases from 0.05 MPa up to 0.6 MPa.