Toroidal spiral cascading of multiple heat engine stages in traveling wave thermoacoustic engines
AssigneeNorthrop Grumman Systems Corporation
InventorMichael B. Petach
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multi-stage traveling wave thermoacoustic engine is disclosed. A plurality of heat engine stages are formed as a toroidal spiral cascade of N stages inside a pressure vessel. Each stage feeds into the next stage such that all of the thermoacoustic power cycles past a common set of thermal interfaces multiple times with the single domed pressure vessel. The inventive thermoacoustic engine is simpler and cheaper to manufacture and more reliable due to the minimization of hot joints.
Claims15
A multi-stage traveling wave thermoacoustic engine, comprising:
- a domed cylindrical shell;
- a thermal buffer tube coaxially located inside said shell, said thermal buffer tube further comprising one or more circumferentially adjacent tube partitions dividing the thermal buffer tube into a plurality of sealed tube stages;
- an annular regenerator located between the shell and the thermal buffer tube, said regenerator further comprising one or more circumferentially adjacent regenerator partitions dividing the regenerator into a plurality of sealed regenerator stages corresponding to the stages in the thermal buffer tube;
- a hot heat exchanger at a first end of said shell;
- and
- a cold heat exchanger at a second end of said shell opposite the first end;
- wherein said thermal buffer tube stages and said regenerator stages are operatively coupled such that a gas flow enters a lower end of a first thermal buffer tube stage, flows past the hot heat exchanger into a first regenerator stage and is directed by the one or more regenerator partitions into a second thermal buffer tube stage adjacent to the first thermal buffer tube stage.
A torus for a multi-stage traveling wave thermoacoustic heat engine comprising:
- a domed cylindrical shell;
- a slotted flow turner heat exchanger in a domed end of the shell;
- a thermal buffer tube inside and coaxial to said shell below the slotted flow turner heat exchanger;
- an annular regenerator between said shell and said thermal buffer tube;
- a first plurality of circumferentially adjacent partitions inside said thermal buffer tube, said first plurality of partitions dividing said thermal buffer tube into a plurality of thermal buffer tube stages;
- and
- a second plurality of circumferentially adjacent partitions equal to the first plurality of partitions dividing said annular regenerator into a plurality of regenerator stages corresponding to the thermal buffer tube stages.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.