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Title: DELTAE. Design Environment for Low-Amplitude Thermoacoustic Engines

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:140439
;  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)

In thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators, and in many simple acoustic systems, a one dimensional wave equation determines the spatial dependence of the acoustic pressure and velocity. DELTAE numerically integrates such wave equations in the acoustic approximation, in gases or liquids, in user-defined geometries. Boundary conditions can include conventional acoustic boundary conditions of geometry and impedance, as well as temperature and thermal power in thermoacoustic systems. DELTAE can be used easily for apparatus ranging from simple duct networks and resonators to thermoacoustic engines refrigerators and combinations thereof. It can predict how a given apparatus will perform, or can allow the user to design an apparatus to achieve desired performance. DELTAE views systems as a series of segments; twenty segment types are supported. The purely acoustic segments include ducts and cones, and lumped impedances including compliances, series impedances, and endcaps. Electroacoustics tranducer segments can be defined using either frequency-independent coefficients or the conventional parameters of loudspeaker-style drivers: mass, spring constant, magnetic field strength, etc. Tranducers can be current driven, voltage driven, or connected to an electrical load impedance. Thermoacoustic segment geometries include parallel plates, circular and rectangular pores, and pin arrays. Side branches can be defined with fixed impedances, frequency-dependent radiation impedances, or as an auxiliary series of segments of any types. The user can select working fluids from among air, helium, neon, argon, hydrogen, deuterium, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium-argon mixtures, helium-xenon mixtures, liquid sodium, and eutectic sodium-potassium. Additional fluids and solids can be defined by the user.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-36
OSTI ID:
140439
Report Number(s):
ESTSC-000644IBMPC00
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 1 Oct 1993
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English