Thermoacoustic waste heat recovery engine: Comparison of simulation and experiment

A thermoacoustic engine heated with a 10–20 kW 600C waste heat exhaust stream was designed and built. The heat is extracted from the exhaust with a microchannel counter flow heat exchanger and delivered to the hot side of the regenerator with a self-ciculating loop. This loop is driven using Venturi driven streaming of the helium working gas so that no high pressure and high temperature pump is required. The prototype system performed close to simulated expectations. A peak of 570 W electrical power was measured as was a peak conversion efficiency of waste heat enthalpy to electrical energy of 5%.