Traveling-wave thermoacoustic electric generator

S. Backhaus
a)
Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,
New Mexico 87545
E. Tward and M. Petach
Northrop Grumman Space Technology, One Space Park, Redondo Beach, California 90277
(Received 29 March 2004; accepted 15 June 2004)
Traveling-wave thermoacoustic heat engines have been demonstrated to convert high-temperature
heat to acoustic power with high efciency without using moving parts. Electrodynamic linear
alternators and compressors have demonstrated high acoustic-to-electric transduction efciency as
well as long maintenance-free lifetimes. By optimizing a small-scale traveling-wave thermoacoustic
engine for use with an electrodynamic linear alternator, we have created a traveling-wave
thermoacoustic electric generator; a power conversion system suitable for demanding applications
such as electricity generation aboard spacecraft. 2004 American Institute of Physics.
[DOI: 10.1063/1.1781739]
Thermoacoustics is the thermodynamic interaction of
acoustics with solid surfaces that posses a temperature gra-
dient. Acoustic pressure oscillations generate heat transfers
to and from solid surfaces while acoustic displacement oscil-
lations can cause those heat transfers to occur at spatially
separate locations. Depending on the time phasing of the
pressure and displacement oscillations, the sign and magni-
tude of the temperature gradient in the solid, and the location
of that temperature gradient in the acoustic wave, several
useful thermodynamic devices can be constructed including
standing-wave and traveling-wave heat engines and
refrigerators.
1
In all of these devices, the only moving com-
ponent is the gas undergoing the acoustic motion. The ab-
sence of mechanical moving parts allows the device geom-
etry to be tailored to a particular application and provides the
potential for very high reliability. The focus of this letter is
the integration of a traveling-wave thermoacoustic heat en-
gine with a linear alternator for the generation of electricity
from high-temperature heat.
Flexure-bearing-supported linear alternators have proven
to be extremely robust and reliable.
2
A exure bearing is
composed of a stack of several spiral-cut circular metallic
plates with a piston attached to its center. The stack of plates
forms a bearing that is extremely stiff with respect to ra-
dial, twisting, or rocking motion of the piston and is rela-
tively soft in the axial direction. This allows the piston to
move in its cylinder with a radial clearance as small as
10 m. The stiff exure bearing keeps the piston from
touching the cylinder and the small clearance effectively
forms a nonwearing seal that requires no lubrication. There
are several techniques to convert the motion of the piston to
electrical power. In the alternator used in this work,
3
a coil of
copper wire is attached to the piston and oscillates with it. As
the coil moves through a magnetic eld generated by perma-
nent magnets, the linear motion of the piston is transformed
into electricity.
Work on the recently reported traveling-wave thermoa-
coustic heat engine has mostly focused on converting high-
temperature heat to acoustic power at high efciency.
4
This
approach is advantageous where the acoustic power can be
used directly, such as powering a traveling-wave thermoa-
coustic refrigerator in a combustion-powered cryogenic re-
frigeration system.
5
Instead, when the engines acoustic
power output is converted to electricity through a linear al-
ternator, interface requirements and size restrictions put ad-
ditional demands on the engine that can signicantly change
its design and optimization.
The traveling-wave engine/linear alternator system de-
veloped in the course of this work is designed for electricity
generation aboard spacecraft.
6
Therefore, the overall system
mass and volume must be minimized while maximizing the
electric power output. The largest contributor to the overall
mass is the linear alternator whose outside diameter is deter-
mined by the size of the exure bearings required to accom-
modate the peak-to-peak piston stroke without experiencing
undo mechanical stress. Modications to the thermoacoustic
engine that minimize the peak-to-peak stroke while main-
taining or increasing the acoustic power output will clearly
reduce the overall system mass and volume by reducing the
alternator mass and volume. This optimization is summa-
rized later in this letter. By minimizing the alternator stroke,
alternator losses will also be reduced.
A line drawing of the engine used in our electric genera-
tor is shown in Fig. 1. Essentially, it is a loop of pipe lled
with 55-bar helium. The loop contains the heat exchangers
and duct work necessary to force the helium to execute a
Stirling-type thermodynamic cycle. The centerplate g is an
annular disk that forms the interface to the linear alternators.
Two identical alternators are mounted on the front and back
of the centerplate in a naturally vibration-balanced pair. Each
half is composed of a 36-mm-diameter piston that oscillates
along an axis perpendicular to the plane of Fig. 1.
The oscillation of the pistons, whose 120-Hz frequency
is determined by the moving mass of the linear alternator and
the engines volume and mean pressure, drives helium in and
out of the engine. Since all components of the engine are
much smaller than an acoustic wavelength at 120 Hz, the
engine can be modeled with a lumped-element electrical cir-
cuit that is analogous to the acoustic circuit.
4
The inset in
Fig. 1 shows the inertia of the helium in the inertance is
a)
Electronic mail: backhaus@lanl.gov
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0003-6951/2004/85(6)/1085/3/$20.00 2004 American Institute of Physics 1085
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replaced by an inductor, L; the compressibility of the helium
in the compliance is replaced by a capacitor, C; and the ow
resistance of the regenerator is replaced by a resistor, R. The
moving mass of the alternator pistons is represented by the
inductor L
a
, and the alternators power consumption by R
a
.
The three engine components (L, C, and R) form an acoustic
network that creates velocity oscillations in the regenerator
that are temporally in phase with the pressure oscillations,
thereby forcing the helium through a Stirling-type thermody-
namic cycle.
The acoustic oscillations are amplied by the interaction
of the helium motion and the large temperature gradient im-
posed by the hot and ambient heat exchangers, approxi-
mately 600 C and 30 C on the hot and ambient faces,
respectively. The oscillation generated by the acoustic net-
work and piston motion compresses the gas in the regenera-
tor while it is nearly stationary. Since the hydraulic radius in
the regenerator is much smaller than a thermal penetration
depth at 120 Hz, the helium is in excellent thermal contact
with the regenerator screen, and therefore, the compression is
nearly isothermal. Typical peak-to-peak pressure oscillations
are 11 bar superimposed on the 55-bar mean pressure. The
pressurized helium is then displaced along the regenerator
and up the temperature gradient. The excellent thermal con-
tact warms the helium as it moves along the regenerator
causing it to thermally expand at high pressure. The rst two
steps are followed by the closely related steps of isothermal
expansion at the higher temperature and then thermal con-
traction at low pressure as the helium displaces back to the
ambient end. By expanding at high pressure and contracting
at low pressure, the helium has produced net work which
manifests itself as an amplication of the acoustic power
carried by the oscillations. Therefore, the regenerator and its
adjacent heat exchangers are not simply a ow resistance,
but also an amplier as represented by the current source in
Fig. 1.
Instead of solving for current and voltage everywhere in
the circuit model of Fig. 1, the following simplied explana-
tion captures the essence of the engine operation. The induc-
tor and capacitor provide a positive feedback path around the
amplier thus forming a self-oscillator. Electrical power cir-
culates around the circuit and is continually amplied by the
current source. In an analogous way, acoustic power circu-
lates around the acoustic network and is continually ampli-
ed in the regenerator. Instead of consuming electrical power
from say batteries or a wall outlet, the power that maintains
the acoustic amplication is the heat input at the hot heat
exchanger.
The usefulness of the circuit model does not end with the
simple explanation above; it is used for a rst-cut optimi-
zation of the engine/alternator system that guides more accu-
rate numerical integrations.
7
As mentioned above, the desired
optimum is maximum acoustic power output for minimum
alternator peak-to-peak stroke. In the electrical circuit, this is
analogous to maximizing the electrical power output while
minimizing the product I where is the angular frequency
of oscillation and I is the current delivered to L
a
and R
a
.
After some algebra, the optimization yields LR which is
used as a starting design point in a more sophisticated nu-
merical optimization. In the nal design, L/ R0.94.
The engine/alternator system of Fig. 1 is characterized
by holding the temperature of the hot heat exchanger at
650 C and the ambient heat exchanger near 30 C while
varying the stroke of the pistons, which effectively varies the
amplitude of the pressure oscillation, p
1
. Individual data
points are simulated by numerical integration. The predicted
resonant frequency, temperature distribution, and pressure
differences between the three sensors shown in Fig. 1 are all
in excellent agreement with measurements. In addition, Fig.
2 demonstrates the good agreement between the measured
and calculated values of the net heat input to the engine,
Q
h,net
, and the acoustic power delivered to the faces of the
pistons, E
piston
. The one-dimensional numerical model accu-
rately accounts for the geometry of the engine and uses the
mean pressure and the temperature of the regenerators hot
and ambient faces as inputs. The agreement demonstrates the
quality of the numerical integrations predictive power.
FIG. 1. Line drawing of the traveling-wave thermoacoustic engine and the
analogous lumped-element electrical circuit (inset) (see Ref. 4). The engine
is instrumented with thermocouples and piezoresistive pressure transducers
at locations labeled T and P, respectively. The major acoustic and ther-
modynamic components include: (a) The ambient heat exchanger which is
an aluminum cylinder that has 37 1.6-mm-diameter holes drilled through,
(b) the regenerator which is a stack of 322 disks of stainless-steel wire mesh
with a porosity of 0.755 and a hydraulic radius of 47 m packed into a
thin-wall Inconel 625 shell, (c) the hot heat exchanger which is a 2.0 mm
gap between two at plates, (d) and (f) ow straighteners made from several
layers of woven wire screen, (e) the thermal buffer tube which is an open
thin-wall Inconel 625 tube, (g) the alternator centerplate which interfaces the
engine to the alternator pistons that are mounted on front and back of the
centerplate and oscillate on an axis perpendicular to the page, (h) the iner-
tance which is composed of a 10.9-mm-inside-diameter stainless-steel tube
and hole of the same diameter drilled from the outer edge of the centerplate
to the inner edge, (i) the compliance which is a 26-cm
3
-cylindrical volume,
and (j) the jet pump which is a tapered annular ow path whose asymmetric
ow resistance can be adjusted by changing the axial position of the central
plug to suppress acoustic streaming driven by the acoustic power circulating
around the engine loop (see Ref. 4).
1086 Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 85, No. 6, 9 August 2004 Backhaus, Tward, and Petach
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The alternators electric power output, E
elec
, is measured
using a commercial power meter.
8
Not all of the acoustic
power delivered to the piston faces is converted to electricity.
The difference between E
piston
and E
elec
, which is the total
alternator loss, is shown in Fig. 3. The curves show the loss
due to various dissipation mechanisms as determined by our
model of the alternator. The model is developed by running
the alternator as a compressor in several different experi-
ments to isolate the individual loss mechanisms. The gap
between the lled circles and the crosses is the dissipation
that cannot be accounted for by our model of the alternator.
Several efciencies can be dened for the system: The
engine efciency,
e
=E
piston
/ Q
h,net
; the alternator efciency,

a
=E
elec
/ E
piston
, and the system efciency,
sys
=E
elec
/ Q
h,net
.
The three efciencies all reach maximums of
e
=0.24,
a
=0.75, and
sys
=0.18 at p
1
/ p
m
=0.063 (peak stroke of
3.1 mm), where E
elec
=39 W. The electrical power output is
highest at p
1
/ p
m
=0.098 (peak stroke of 4.5 mm) where
E
elec
=58 W,
e
=0.23,
a
=0.68, and
sys
=0.15.
A traveling-wave thermoacoustic engine has been used
to generate electricity by integrating it with a linear alterna-
tor. This rst effort has already yielded a thermal-to-electric
conversion efciency as high as 0.18 and introduces a ther-
modynamic system for the conversion of heat to electricity.
This work was supported by NASA under Contract No.
NAS3-01103.
1
G. W. Swift, Thermoacoustics: A Unifying Perspective for Some Engines
and Refrigerators (Acoustical Society of America, Sewickley, PA, 2002).
2
P. B. Bailey, M. W. Dadd, N. Hill, C. F. Cheuk, J. Raab, and E. Tward, in
Cryocoolers 11, edited by R. G. Ross (Plenum, New York, 2001), pp.
169174.
3
C. F. Cheuk, N. G. Hill, R. Strauch, P. B. Bailey, and J. Raab, in Cryo-
coolers 12, edited by R. G. Ross (Plenum, New York, 2002), pp. 275281.
4
S. Backhaus and G. W. Swift, Nature (London) 399, 335 (1999).
5
J. J. Wollan, G. W. Swift, S. Backhaus, and D. L. Gardner, Proceedings of
the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE, New York, 2002).
6
E. Tward, M. Petach, and S. Backhaus, in Space Technology and Applica-
tions International Forum (AIP Press, New York, 2002), p. 656.
7
W. C. Ward and G. W. Swift, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3671 (1994);soft-
ware and users guide available either from the Los Alamos thermoacous-
tics website at www.lanl.gov/thermoacoustics/ or from the Energy Science
and Technology Software Center, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge,
Tenn.
8
In practice, two power meters are used. Due to various nonlinear pro-
cesses, helium is pumped through the gap between each piston and cylin-
der. This would force the pistons off center, however, a dc current is
injected into the alternator coils to keep the pistons centered axially. One
power meter measures the difference between the ac power generated by
the alternator and the injected dc power. A second power meter measures
the dc power. We report the sum of the two power meter measurements
which is the ac power generated by the alternator.
FIG. 2. The net heat input to the engine and acoustic power delivered to the
pistons versus the magnitude of the acoustic amplitude, p
1
, normalized by
the mean pressure, p
m
. The heat input to the engine is determined by mea-
suring the current and voltage delivered to four electric heaters bonded to
the top of the hot heat exchanger. A static heat leak measurement is made by
loading the alternator to the point where the engine will not oscillate. The
static heat leak due to losses though the thermal insulation surrounding the
engines hot parts 60 W is subtracted off the heat input to yield the net
heat input, Q
h,net
. The acoustic power delivered to the piston faces, E
piston
, is
calculated from measurements of the complex pressure amplitude at the
piston faces and the complex velocity amplitude of the pistons, which is
measured with a linear variable differential transducer (LVDT) attached to
the back of each piston.
FIG. 3. Alternator loss for the same ve data points as in Fig. 2 versus the
peak stroke of the pistons. The peak stroke is proportional to p
1
/ p
m
plotted
on the x axis of Fig. 2. The vertical gap between data points indicates the
power dissipated by the various loss mechanisms. A model for each mecha-
nism is developed by using different measurements to isolate individual
mechanisms: Pressure drop due to steady ow determines the seal loss;
vacuum ringdown determines the mechanical and magnetic hysteresis; op-
eration in a pressurized gas without a piston determines the motor windage
losses; and the motor space thermal hysteresis is measured using an LVDT
attached to the piston and an additional pressure transducer behind the
piston.
Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 85, No. 6, 9 August 2004 Backhaus, Tward, and Petach 1087
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