Numerical simulation of a thermoacoustic engine startup

Miloud Abidat , Mohamed Zohir Dar Ramdane , Leila Merahi , Mohamed Hamel , Omar Hireche

In this paper, a numerical study of a standing-wave thermoacoustic engine startup is presented. The aim of this work is to study the effect of the heat exchangers length on the acoustic power of the thermoacoustic engine (TAE). The analysis of the flow and the prediction of the heat transfer for the different lengths of the heat exchangers are performed by solving the non linear unsteady Navier-Stocks equations using the finite volume discretisation method implemented in the ANSYS-CFX CFD code. The results show that the increase in the local specific work is proportional to the increase of the heat exchangers length. The same method, presented in this paper, can also be applied to thermoacoustic refrigerators.

Mots clés: Thermoacoustic engine; Standing-wave; start up; Acoustic power

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Miloud Abidat, Mohamed Zohir Dar Ramdane, Leila Merahi, Mohamed Hamel, Omar Hireche. Numerical simulation of a thermoacoustic engine startup. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811230⟩