Experimental investigation on a thermoacoustic engine having a looped tube and resonator Original Research Article

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of regenerator hydraulic radius, resonator length, and mean pressure on the characteristics of the tested thermoacoustic engine, which has a looped tube and resonator. Two different acoustic oscillations are observed in the tested engine [Yu ZB, Li Q, Chen X, Guo FZ, Xie XJ, Wu JH. Investigation on the oscillation modes in a thermoacoustic stirling prime mover: mode stability and mode transition. Cryogenics 2003;43(12):687–91]. In this paper, they are called two acoustic modes, high frequency mode (with a frequency independent of the resonator length) and low frequency mode (with a frequency depending on the resonator length). Experimental results indicate that the relative penetration depth (the ratio of penetration depth over hydraulic radius) plays an important role in the excitation and pressure amplitude of the two acoustic modes. For each tested regenerator hydraulic radius, there is a measured optimal relative penetration depth, which leads to the lowest onset temperature difference. Note that, in the tested engine, the measured optimal relative viscous penetration depths are in the range 3–5 (for low frequency mode). Furthermore, experimental results also show that the resonator length affects the presence of high frequency mode in this engine.