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Thermoacoustic
technology for
future
advancement in
Engines, Air-
conditioning &
Cryogenics”

BNCE Pusad
Brought to you by-
4/4/2006
Ritesh Bhusari
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A
PAPER PRESENTATION
ON

“Thermoacoustic technology for future


advancement in Engines, Air-
conditioning & Cryogenics”

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ABSTRACT
AUTHORS
NILESH N. KUNKULOL UMESH H. MALI
B. E. Mech. B. E. Mech.

TITLE - “Thermoacoustic technology for future advancement in refrigeration,


air-conditioning & cryogenics”

As conventional energy sources are limited using them efficiently is


very much necessary. Heat, the most degradable form of energy, is generated
by various ways. Converting available heat efficiently is the main focus in
today’s era. The objective of this seminar is to demonstrate the thermoacoustic
phenomenon, which uses heat to initiate the oscillation of gas without moving
parts. The new breakthrough in this heat conversion field is thermoacoustic
heat engine. This engine can convert heat in to useful work with maximum
efficiency. These engines will serve as source of energy in the new
millennium.
This literature critically examines the above aspects of Thermoacoustic
engines.

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INTRODUCTION
Thermoacoustics can be simply defined as the physics of the interaction of thermal
& acoustic fields, especially in the form in which one gives rise to a significant component
of the other. (1)
Thermoacoustics as the name suggests is a field, which involves the use of
knowledge in both acoustics & thermodynamics. Due to the theoretical complexity of each
of these fields on their own, there has been little progress in thermoacoustics, particularly
here in India. The numerical complexities of thermoacoustic engines are out weighed by the
advantages of using the phenomenon. Thermoacoustic devices in operation are "low tech"
devices, which have no moving parts & hence should require low maintenance.
This makes the potential for their application desirable in many fields, applications
would include, aerospace, industrial & in the third world. Thermoacoustic devises are
currently used by high budget industries but are still able to be constructed from smaller
budgets. They are silent in operation & will operate from any source of heat, including
chemical fuels, solar radiations, waste heat from industrial processes etc.

BASIC THERMOACOUSTIC
Thermoacoustics is the study of the thermoacoustic effect & the attempt to harness
the effect as a useful heat engine. A thermoacoustic prime mover (engine) uses heat to
create sound. (1)
Simply put, thermoacoustic effect is the conversion of heat energy to sound energy
or vice versa. Utilizing the Thermoacoustic effect, engines can be developed that use heat as
energy source & have no moving parts To explain the thermoacoustic effect, consider a high
amplitude sound wave in a tube. As the sound wave travels back & forth in the tube, the gas
compresses & expands (that's what a sound wave is). When the gas compresses it heats up
& when it expands it cools off. The gas also moves back & forth, stopping to reverse
direction at the time when the gas is maximally compressed (hot) or expanded (cool). (1)
Now, put a plate of material in the tube at the same temperature as the gas before the
sound wave is started. The sound wave compresses & heats the gas. As the gas slows to turn
around & expand, the gas close to the plate gives up heat to the plate. The gas cools slightly
& the plate below the hot gas warms slightly. The gas then moves, expands, & cools off,
becoming colder than the plate. As the gas slows to turn around & expand, the cool gas
takes heat from the plate, heating slightly & leaving the plate below the gas cooler than it
was.
So, what has happened is one part of the plate gets cooler, & one part gets hotter. If
we stack up many plates atop each other (making sure to leave space for the sound to go
through), place the plates of an optimal length in the optimal area of the tube & attach heat
exchangers to get heat in & out of the ends of the plates.
Even more spectacular is the fact that it can work in reverse. If we have a stack of
plates & force one end to be hot & the other cold & put that in a tube, we can create a very
loud sound. Thus by using waste heat we could create sound in a tube & use that sound to
cool off another part of the tube. A device that creates sound from heat is called a
thermoacoustic heat engine.
Thermoacoustics is a technology long in search of a non-niche application. The roar
of a jet engine is a thermoacoustic phenomenon. While many thermoacoustic events are

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simply incidental to some other occurrence, there are applications of thermoacoustics that
have potential utility. For example, a tube closed at one end & dipped into liquid nitrogen
will make loud sound at the frequency corresponding to a wavelength equal to twice the
length of the tube. Conversely, if acoustic energy is used as the prime mover, the tube can
be made to cool & be used as a thermoacoustic refrigerator with NO moving parts. Both
standing wave & traveling wave tubes are being studied. These devices all operate on the
principle that the compression & rarefaction of gas (air & other gases & gas mixtures)
causes heating & cooling of the gas as defined by the gas equation of state. This heating &
cooling & the expansion & contraction that accompany it can be used to drive devices. (2)
This technology is the first new breakthrough in thermal energy conversion in
decades. These engines convert thermal energy into electric current at high efficiency. They
cost less than one fourth that of photovoltaic cells per peak watt & have applications from
pollution frees lawn & garden equipments to automobiles to stationery power generation.
They are silent in operation & will operate from any source of heat, including chemical
fuels, solar radiations, waste heat from industrial processes etc.

THERMOACOUSTIC ENGINE
Oscillatory thermal expansion & contraction of a gas could create acoustic power "if
heat be given to the air at the moment of greatest condensation, or be taken from it at the
moment of greatest rarefaction," & that the oscillatory thermal expansion & contraction
could themselves be caused by the acoustic wave under consideration, in a channel with a
temperature gradient. (2)
The gas is being compressed by the passing pressure wave (compression).
Successively the gas parcel is moved to a hotter part of the regenerator. Since the
temperature over there is higher than the gas parcel, the gas is heated (heating). Then the
pressure wave that first compressed the gas parcel is now expanding it (expansion). Finally,
the gas parcel is moved back to its original position. The parcel of gas is still hotter than the
structure (regenerator) resulting in heat transfer from the gas to the structure (Cooling).

Fig : In a Stirling engine (left), two pistons oscillating with the correct relative time phasing carry a
gas in two heat exchangers & a regenerator through a cycle of pressurization, motion from ambient to hot,
depressurization, & motion from hot to ambient.

STANDING-WAVE ENGINE (2)


Rayleigh's criterion for spontaneous thermoacoustic oscillation that heat should flow
into the gas while its density is high & out of the gas while its density is low—is
accomplished in the Sondhauss tube & in other standing-wave engines
As a typical parcel of the gas oscillates along the axis of the channel, it experiences

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changes in temperature, caused by adiabatic compression & expansion of the gas by the
sound pressure & by heat exchange with the solid wall of the channel. A thermodynamic
cycle, with the time phasing called for by Rayleigh, results from the coupled pressure,
temperature, position, & heat oscillations.
The time phasing between gas motion & gas pressure is such that the gas moves
hotward while the pressure is rising & coolward while the pressure is falling. Deliberately
imperfect heat exchange between the gas & the solid wall of the channel is required in order
to introduce a significant time delay between gas motion & gas thermal
expansion/contraction, so that Rayleigh's criterion is met. The imperfect thermal contact
results when the characteristic lateral dimension of the channel is one or more thermal
penetration depth in the gas at the frequency of the oscillation. The time phasing described
above is that of a standing acoustic wave.
In standing-wave engines, the process occurs in many channels in parallel, all of
which contribute to the acoustic power generation. Such a set of parallel channels, now
called a stack, was not added to a Sondhauss tube until the 1960s. This important
development allowed filling a large-diameter tube with small channels, creating a large
volume of strong thermoacoustic power production, while leaving the rest of the resonator
open & relatively low in dissipation. Heat exchangers spanning the ends of the stack are
needed for efficient delivery & extraction of the large amounts of heat needed by a stack.
.Figure 3 shows a recent example of such an engine, which produced acoustic powers up to
17 kW & operated at efficiency as high as 18%. (Here, efficiency is the ratio of acoustic
power flow rightward out of the ambient heat exchanger to the heater power supplied to the
hot heat exchanger by the combustion of natural gas.)

Fig : Powerful standing-wave thermoacoustic engine


Although Rayleigh gave the correct qualitative description of the oscillating
thermodynamics that is at the core of standing-wave engines, an accurate theory was not
developed derived the wave equation & energy equation for monofrequency sound
propagating along a temperature gradient in a channel.

TRAVELING-WAVE ENGINES (2)


In Stirling engines & traveling-wave engines, the conversion of heat to acoustic
power occurs in the regenerator, which smoothly spans the temperature difference between
the hot heat exchanger & the ambient heat exchanger & contains small channels through
which the gas oscillates. The channels must be much smaller than those of the stacks
described above—small enough that the gas in them is in excellent local thermal contact
with their walls. A solid matrix such as a pile of fine-mesh metal screens is often used.
Proper design causes the gas in the channels to move toward the hot heat exchanger while
the pressure is high & toward the ambient heat exchanger while the pressure is low, as

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shown in Fig. 4 (cf. "while...rising" & "while...falling" in the standing- wave description for
Fig. 3). Hence, the oscillating thermal expansion & contraction of the gas in the regenerator,
attending its oscillating motion along the temperature gradient in the pores, has the correct
time phasing with respect to the oscillating pressure to meet Rayleigh's requirement for
power production.
The time phasing described above is that of a traveling acoustic wave, which carries
acoustic power from ambient to hot. In contrast to standing-wave engines, acoustic power
must be injected into the ambient end of a regenerator in order to create more acoustic
power; the regenerator is an amplifier of acoustic power. (This point is important for
understanding the cascaded engines described below.) A simple, dead-ended resonator
cannot provide the ambient power injection, so an ambient piston or toroidal resonator (Fig.
5) is necessary.
The conversion of heat to acoustic power occurs in the regenerator between two heat
exchangers, which are structurally & functionally similar to those of a Stirling engine.
Proper design of the acoustic network (including, principally, the feedback inertance &
compliance) causes the gas in the channels of the regenerator to move toward the hot heat
exchanger while the pressure is high & toward the main ambient heat exchanger while the
pressure is low. Excellent thermal contact between the gas & the regenerator matrix ensures
that Rayleigh's criterion is satisfied as in a Stirling engine, but without moving parts. With a
wire screen or parallel-plate regenerator, the engine of Fig. 5 has produced acoustic power
of 710 W or 1750 W, respectively, each with an efficiency of 30%.
Several mechanisms might convect heat from hot to ambient without creating
acoustic power, thereby reducing the engine's efficiency. A thermal buffer tube (Fig. 5) is
needed to thermally isolate the hot heat exchanger from ambient- temperature components
below. Ideally, a slug of the gas in the axially central portion of a thermal buffer tube
experiences adiabatic pressure oscillations & thermally stratified velocity/motion
oscillations, so that this slug of gas behaves like an axially compressible, thermally
insulating, oscillating piston.

Fig - Thermoacoustic-Stirling hybrid engine, producing 1 kW of power at an efficiency of 30%


without moving parts. The E's show the circulation & flow of acoustic power.

CASCADED STANDING-WAVE AND TRAVELIN-WAVE ENGINES (2)


None of the systems described thus far provides high efficiency & great reliability &
low fabrication costs. For example, the traditional Stirling engine has high efficiency, but its
moving parts (requiring tight seals between the pistons & their surrounding cylinders)
compromise reliability & are responsible for high fabrication costs. The thermoacoustic-

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Stirling hybrid engine has reasonably high efficiency & very high reliability, but the
toroidal topology needed is responsible for high fabrication costs, for two reasons: It is
difficult to provide flexibility in the toroidal pressure vessel to accommodate the thermal
expansion of the hot heat exchanger & surrounding hot parts. Finally, the stack-based
standing-wave thermoacoustic engine is reliable & costs little to fabricate, but its efficiency
is only about 2/3 that of a regenerator based system.
Hoping to enjoy the best features of all these systems, we have begun to build a
combination in which one standing-wave engine & two traveling-wave engines are
cascaded in series, as shown in Fig. 6. All three engines will be within one pressure
maximum in the standing wave, with the stack at a location where z ~ 5 pa & the
regenerators at locations of higher z. The two cascaded regenerator units will provide great
amplification of the small amount of acoustic power that will be created by the small stack
unit. Only about 20% of the total acoustic power will be created in the stack, so the stack's
comparatively low efficiency will have a small impact on the entire system's efficiency.

Fig. : A cascade of one stack & two regenerators, with the necessary adjacent heat exchangers &
intervening thermal buffer tubes, should provide high efficiency in a simple, reliable package.
The performance of our engine will be judged by its output efficiency. G. Swift has
made several thermoacoustic devices & claims efficiencies in the order of 23% of the
Carnot efficiency. Efficiencies of 23% of the Carnot are still poor, relative to current
mechanical technology. It is hoped that efficiencies of thermoacoustic devises can be
improved with further development. Still, thermoacoustic devices have real world
applications due to their low maintenance & lack of environmentally harmful gases.

Product Feature
Thermo acoustic engine has some specifications that meet most of these

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requirements & some others can easily be added to it.


Competitively efficient: Although the efficiency is not the main criteria of the
Thermoacoustic Engine, a device that can compete with the existing products is possible.
This is supported with the adjustable temperature control system.
Adjustable temperature control: Enables the consumers to control the temperature at the
necessary level. The existing products run until some temperature level & then stop & then
start again when the temperature gets too high. This decreases the efficiency of the engine.
Temperature control with the thermo acoustic devices can be done by simply decreasing or
increasing the sound volume.
Minimum moving parts: These engines have no sliding seals & can be built by using few
or no moving parts. Since there are no moving parts there is no need to use chemicals as
lubricants. This will increase the life span of the product a decrease the maintenance cost.
Application of Thermoacoustic Technology
In principle there is a large variety of applications possible for Thermoacoustic
engines. Below, some concrete examples are given of possible applications:
Ø Liquefaction of natural gas: TA-engine generates acoustic energy. This acoustic
energy is used in a TA-heat pump to liquefy natural gas.
Ø Chip cooling: In this case a piezo-electric element generates the sound wave. A TA-
heat pump cools the chip.
Ø Electricity from sunlight: Concentrated thermal solar energy generates an acoustic
wave in a heated TA-engine. A linear motor generates electricity from this.
Ø Cogeneration (combined heat and power): A burner heats a TA-engine, therewith
generating acoustic energy. A linear motor converts this acoustic energy into
electricity.
Ø Upgrading industrial waste heat: Acoustic energy is created by means of
industrial waste heat in a TA-engine. In a TA-heat pump this acoustic energy is used
to upgrade the same waste heat to a useful temperature level.
Ø Thermoacoustic Refrigerator: Acoustic energy is created by heat supplied & used
for refrigerating effect.

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CONCLUSION

Thermoacoustics has shown how promising a technology it can be. The future may
hold some very large uses for thermoacoustics, depending on how industry chooses to
respond to the idea of integrating thermoacoustic devices into their products. The research
is, however, going to continue regardless of the way industry acts and further advances will
be made in the field of applicable thermoacoustics. The future may see thermoacoustic
refrigerators dominating the market and thermoacoustic engines powering transportation
vehicles. Although they are nothing more than air pressures, sound waves hold the
technological power to provide a safe, efficient & clean method of heating, cooling, and
running engines. It could be said, with much honesty, that these technological advances are
truly the "wave" of the future.

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REFERENCES

1. G.W. Swift: "Thermoacoustic engines. J. Acoust. Soc.Am."


G.W. Swift: "Thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators" Los Alamos Science
Number 21 1993.

2. Scott Backhauss & G.W. Swift: "Thermoacoustic engines. J. Acoust. Soc.Am."


G.W. Swift: "New varieties Of Thermoacoustic engines" LA-UR-02-2721

3. Owen Lucas and Karel Meeuwissen “Design And Construction Of A


Thermoacoustic Device”

4. M.E.H. Tijani, S. Spoelstra, P.W. Bach “Thermal-Relaxation Dissipation In


Thermoacoustic Systems” ECN-RX--03-054

5. Feng Wu, Chih Wu, Fangzhong Guo, Qing Li and Lingen Chen “Optimization of a
Thermoacoustic Engine with a Complex Heat Transfer Exponent” Entropy 2003, 5,
444-451

6. Insu Paek, James E. Braun, and Luc Mongeau “Heat Transfer Coefficients of Heat
Exchangers in Thermoacoustic Coolers” ICR0568

7. Jay A. Adeff, Thomas J. Hofler “Design & Construction of a Solarpowered,


Thermoacoustically Driven, Thermoacoustic Refrigerator” 43.10.Ln, 43.35.Ud
[Heb]

8. "A Thermoacoustic Characterization of a Rijke-type Tube Combustor" By Dr.


William R. Saunders.

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