scholarly journals Design Optimization and Performance Analysis of a Multi-kW Thermoacoustic Electric Generator Using DeltaEC Model

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Srinath Somu ◽  
Deanna A. Lacoste ◽  
Saumitra Saxena ◽  
William Roberts ◽  
Robert M. Keolian

Abstract Waste heat recovery from power plants and industries requires a new type of electricity generator and related technological developments. The current research work is aimed at the design of a multi-kilowatt thermoacoustic electric generator, which can be employed as the bottoming cycle of a gas-turbine power plant or for industrial waste heat recovery. The proposed device converts thermal energy into acoustic power and subsequently uses a piezoelectric alternator to convert acoustic power into electricity. The challenge in designing such a device is that it has to be acoustically balanced. The performance of the device is greatly affected by numerous parameters such as frequency of the traveling acoustic wave, heat exchanger parameters, regenerator dimensions, acoustic feedback loop, etc. The proposed device is a lab-scale demonstration targeted to produce few kilowatts of electric power from a 20 kWth heat source. DeltaEC software is used to achieve the acoustically balanced configuration of the device. The DeltaEC model outcomes are used to arrive at the optimized design of the device and its components. The analytical method, the optimized geometrical dimensions of thermoacoustic components, and the minimum required conditions of heat source input are presented in this paper.

Author(s):  
Srinath Somu ◽  
Deanna Lacoste ◽  
Saumitra Saxena ◽  
William L. Roberts ◽  
Robert M. Keolian

Abstract Waste heat recovery from power plants and industries requires a new type of electricity generators and related technological developments. The current research work is aimed at the design of a multi-kilowatt thermoacoustic electric generator, which can be employed as the bottoming cycle of a gas-turbine power plant or for industrial waste heat recovery. The proposed device converts thermal energy into acoustic power and subsequently uses a piezoelectric alternator to convert acoustic power into electricity. The challenge in designing such a device is that it has to be acoustically balanced and the performance of the device is greatly affected by numerous parameters such as frequency of the traveling acoustic wave, heat exchanger parameters, regenerator dimensions, acoustic feedback loop, etc. The proposed device is a lab-scale demonstration targeted to produce a few kilowatts of electric power from a 20 kWth heat source. To achieve the acoustically balanced configuration of the device, DeltaEC software is used. The DeltaEC model outcomes are used to arrive at the optimized design of the device and its components. The analytical method, the optimized geometrical dimensions of thermoacoustic components and the minimum required conditions of heat source input are presented in this paper.


2019 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 200-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Yan ◽  
Chunyuan Ma ◽  
Qiuwan Shen ◽  
Zhanlong Song ◽  
Jingcai Chang

Author(s):  
Antonio Agresta ◽  
Antonella Ingenito ◽  
Roberto Andriani ◽  
Fausto Gamma

Following the increasing interest of aero-naval industry to design and build systems that might provide fuel and energy savings, this study wants to point out the possibility to produce an increase in the power output from the prime mover propulsion systems of aircrafts. The complexity of using steam heat recovery systems, as well as the lower expected cycle efficiencies, temperature limitations, toxicity, material compatibilities, and/or costs of organic fluids in Rankine cycle power systems, precludes their consideration as a solution to power improvement for this application in turboprop engines. The power improvement system must also comply with the space constraints inherent with onboard power plants, as well as the interest to be economical with respect to the cost of the power recovery system compared to the fuel that can be saved per flight exercise. A waste heat recovery application of the CO2 supercritical cycle will culminate in the sizing of the major components.


2013 ◽  
Vol 597 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Sławomir Smoleń ◽  
Hendrik Boertz

One of the key challenges on the area of energy engineering is the system development for increasing the efficiency of primary energy conversion and use. An effective and important measure suitable for improving efficiencies of existing applications and allowing the extraction of energy from previously unsuitable sources is the Organic Rankine Cycle. Applications based on this cycle allow the use of low temperature energy sources such as waste heat from industrial applications, geothermal sources, biomass, fired power plants and micro combined heat and power systems.Working fluid selection is a major step in designing heat recovery systems based on the Organic Rankine Cycle. Within the framework of the previous original study a special tool has been elaborated in order to compare the influence of different working fluids on performance of an ORC heat recovery power plant installation. A database of a number of organic fluids has been developed. The elaborated tool should create a support by choosing an optimal working fluid for special applications and become a part of a bigger optimization procedure by different frame conditions. The main sorting criterion for the fluids is the system efficiency (resulting from the thermo-physical characteristics) and beyond that the date base contains additional information and criteria, which have to be taken into account, like environmental characteristics for safety and practical considerations.The presented work focuses on the calculation and optimization procedure related to the coupling heat source – ORC cycle. This interface is (or can be) a big source of energy but especially exergy losses. That is why the optimization of the heat transfer between the heat source and the process is (besides the ORC efficiency) of essential importance for the total system efficiency.Within the presented work the general calculation approach and some representative calculation results have been given. This procedure is a part of a complex procedure and program for Working Fluid Selection for Organic Rankine Cycle Applied to Heat Recovery Systems.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Kowalczyk ◽  
Paweł Ziółkowski ◽  
Janusz Badur

Abstract The conversion of a waste heat energy to electricity is now becoming one of the key points to improve the energy efficiency in a process engineering. However, large losses of a low-temperature thermal energy are also present in power engineering. One of such sources of waste heat in power plants are exhaust gases at the outlet of boilers. Through usage of a waste heat regeneration system it is possible to attain a heat rate of approximately 200 MWth, under about 90 °C, for a supercritical power block of 900 MWel fuelled by a lignite. In the article, we propose to use the waste heat to improve thermal efficiency of the Szewalski binary vapour cycle. The Szewalski binary vapour cycle provides steam as the working fluid in a high temperature part of the cycle, while another fluid – organic working fluid – as the working substance substituting conventional steam over the temperature range represented by the low pressure steam expansion. In order to define in detail the efficiency of energy conversion at various stages of the proposed cycle the exergy analysis was performed. The steam cycle for reference conditions, the Szewalski binary vapour cycle as well as the Szewalski hierarchic vapour cycle cooperating with a system of waste heat recovery have been comprised.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4691
Author(s):  
Jia Yu ◽  
Qingshan Zhu ◽  
Li Kong ◽  
Haoqing Wang ◽  
Hongji Zhu

This paper focuses on the problem of thermoelectric cooler waste heat recovery and utilization, and proposes taking the waste heat together with the original heat source as the input heat source of the integrated thermoelectric generation–cooling system. By establishing an analytic model of this integrated thermoelectric generation–cooling system, the steady-state and transient thermal effects of this system are analyzed. The steady-state analysis results show that the thermoelectric generator’s actual heat source is about 20% larger than the intrinsic heat source. The transient analysis results prove that the current of thermoelectric power generation and the cold end temperature of the system show a nonlinear change rate with time. The cold end temperature of the system has a maximum value. Under different intrinsic heat sources, this maximum value can be reached between 1 s and 2.5 s.


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