Numerical modelling of a looped travelling wave thermoacoustic engine

Abstract

This article presents a two-dimensional axis-symmetric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of a three-stage travelling wave thermoacoustic engine using Ansys Fluent. The model incorporates porous media submodels to represent heat exchangers and regenerators, operating at a heating temperature of 600 K and an ambient temperature of 293 K, with helium as the working fluid stabilised around 3 MPa mean pressure. In comparison to traditional network models, CFD yields accurate results in solving the flow field and captures higher-order details in the fluid domain.