Experimental investigation of a 500 W traveling-wave thermoacoustic electricity generator

Abstract

In this paper, an experimental investigation of a traveling-wave thermoacoustic electricity generator, which consists of a traveling-wave thermoacoustic heat engine and a linear alternator driven by that engine, is presented. Using the results of previous theoretical and experimental research, we designed and fabricated a traveling-wave thermoacoustic heat engine and a linear alternator. In the experiments, 450.9 W of electrical power was obtained with a maximum thermal-to-electrical efficiency of 15.03%, and a maximum electrical power of 481.0 W was achieved with 12.65% thermal-to-electrical efficiency. © 2011 Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.