Exploration of a Model Thermoacoustic Turbogenerator with a Bidirectional Turbine

Abstract The utilisation of the thermal emissions of modern ship power plants requires the development and implementation of essentially new methods of using low-temperature waste heat. Thermoacoustic technologies are able to effectively use low-temperature and cryogenic heat resources with a potential difference of 500–111 K. Thermoacoustic heat machines (TAHMs) are characterised by high reliability, simplicity and environmental safety. The wide implementation of thermoacoustic energy-saving systems is hampered by the low specific power and the difficulties of directly producing mechanical work. An efficient approach to converting acoustic energy into mechanical work entails the utilisation of axial pulse bidirectional turbines within thermoacoustic heat engines. These thermoacoustic turbogenerators represent comprehensive systems that consist of thermoacoustic primary movers with an electric generator actuated by an axial-pulse bidirectional turbine. The development of such a thermoacoustic turbogenerator requires several fundamental issues to be solved. For this purpose, a suitable experimental setup and a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a thermoacoustic engine (TAE) with bidirectional turbines were created. The research program involved conducting physical experiments and the CFD modelling of processes in a TAE resonator with an installed bidirectional turbine. The boundary and initial conditions for CFD calculations were based on empirical data. The adequacy of the developed numerical model was substantiated by the results of physical experiments. The CFD results showed that the most significant energy losses in bidirectional turbines are manifested in the output grid of the turbine.