Investigation On Miniaturization Of Thermoacoustic Prime Mover

Miniature thermoacoustic engine may be considered as a potential way of heat management in MEMS because of its simplicity and operational stability. In order to explore the performance of the miniature thermoacoustic prime mover, the theoretical and experimental works focus on the following sections:1. We first analyze how to simulate thermoacoustic system with electro-acoustical analog method. According to linear thermoacoustics, fundamental equations for circuit simulation are derived. The frequency characteristic of the system has been discussed through the impedance in thermoacoustic prime mover.2. Simulation circuit model of a standing wave thermoacoustic prime mover has been built up for verification of the electric analog in thermoacoustic systems. The simulation results accord with the results from thermodynamic emulation in literatures. Then circuit simulation method is applied to a miniature thermoacoustic prime mover. The influences of buffer volume, stack, resonance tube and input power on the system's performance are discussed.3. Based on the above mentioned simulation of the miniature thermoacoustic prime mover, a prototype with variable resonance tube lengths was built for experiments to observe its performance, such as onset temperature, oscillation amplitude and operating frequency. The results with atmospheric air show that proper structures and operating conditions can make the system start an oscillation at a temperature lower than 100℃. The experimental results acceptably accord to the corresponding simulation results.