Open Sys. & Information Dyn. 10: 391-802, 2008 © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers 391 Printed in the Netherlands Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacoustic Self-Excited Oscillation Qing Lit, Feng Wu, Pangzhong Guo’, Chih Wut, Jihao Wi Technical Institute of Chemistry and Physics CAS, Beijing, 100080, P.R. China "Department of Physics and Heat Engineering Wuhan Institute of Chemical Technology Wiha 430073, P-R. China “Cryogenic Lab, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan, 430074, P-R- China “Departament of Mechanical Engineering, U-S. Naval Academy Annapolis, MD 21402, US.A (Received: December 22, 2002) Abstract. Thermodynamic mechanism of thermoacoustic solf-excited osilation is analyzed in this paper. The law of minimizing entropy fow is obtained basing on the fundamentals of faite-time thermodynamics. The results obtained here show that the theimoacoustic self-excited ‘oscillation, which is & non-isentropic oscillation with power-ontput corresponding to a limit eycle in the phase space takes place when hot emperature 7 exceeds a thresheld value Tj. The effect, ‘of nonlinear terms on the system will lead to the second harmonic wave, 1. Introduction For long time extensive studies have been conducted in order te provide a thorough understanding of the energy transport and conversion in a thermoacoustic engine (including prime mover and refrigerator) [1-4], which is an important energy conversion device without moving part. In areal thermoacoustic stack with longitudinal temperature gradient, which is ‘an important part of thermoacoustic engine, the interactions between the entropy wave and the oscillating flow produce a rich variety of thermoacoustic phenome such as self-excited gas oscillation and thermoacoustic heat pump [5]. Thermoa- coustic effect is of the great application potential in thermoacostic engine and refrigerator, thermoacoustic mixture separation (6), thermoacoustic air-condition [7], thermoacoustic condensation [8), natural gas liquefier [9] axd so on. ‘Thermoa- coustic effect was first explained by Rayleigh [10] as due to oscillatory thermal expansion and contraction of the gas in an imposed temperature gradient. Early ‘quantitatively calculation was completed by Rott (11, 12] in 1960s and 1970s. Most All correspondence should be addressed to Feng Wa, e-mail: wufengttmail.whict.edaen392 Q.Li, F. Wa, F, Guo, ©. Wa, J. Wa experimental studies on thermoaconstic engines concentrated on standing wave en- «zines [I] using a resonator in the end of 20-th century. Recently, traveling wave engines [4,13] have been developed by using a looped tube, G.W. Swift group in Los Alamos laboratory of America makes great. contributions to thermoacoustic theory and application. Their research works deal with a lot of aspects of thermoa- coustic field [1,3, 14 19}. Except the geometrical structure othe thermoacoustie device and the phase of sound field in the thermoacoustic stzck, a standing wave engine and a traveling wave engine is alike in the thermodynamic mechanism of thermoacoustic effect. ‘They are both a self-excited oscillation induced by the en- tropy flux from environment to system. In the circumstance, the entropy flux is called neg-entropy flow, owing to input component being less than output compo- nent of the total entropy flux. Optimal control thcory is a powerful tool for investigation of thermodynamic systems [20]. Several authors have studied the work flow, the heat flow and the entropy flow by thermodynamic analysis on thermoacoustic phenomena (1, 21,22]. Recently, Tominaga et. al. (23) indicated that nature selects branch of smallest entropy flow for thermoacoustic selfexcited oscillation. Based on these works, this paper analyzes the minimizing entropy flow in a thermoacoustic system by using the finite time thermodynamics (FTT) theory [24]. The thermodynamic mechanism of thermoacoustic oscillation, the linear stability and the nonlinear disturbance of the thermoacoustic system are investigated in this paper. 2. ‘Thermodynamic Mechanism of Self-Excited Oscillation It has been proved by theory and experiment that self-excited oscillation takes, place and acoustic power is produced when the temperature gradient superimposed ‘on the stack exceeds a threshold value which is dependant on the mean gas pres- sure [1,5]. After preoscillation, the system leads to a space-time self-organization called dissipative structure in which nonequilibrium and irreversibility are at. the core of ordered phenomenon (24). Unlike Boltzmann ordered structure, the dissi- pative structure dissipates energy and negentropy flow. Tn thermoacoustic engine, the energy-exchange between the system and the environment is completed by hot and cold heat exchangers and the nonequilibrium condition is kept. by the temperature gradient superimposed on the thermoacoustic stack. The interac- tion between thermal diffusion wave due to the temperature gradient. and viscous wave due to the velocity gradient in the direction transverse to the flow induces the phase delay between the dynamic wave and the density wave. It follows that the nonequilibrium and irreversible processes play a key role for thermoacoustic oscillation. For an open system, the rate of entropy increase may be written as $= 845, @) where 5, is the entropy flow from environment to system, whose sign can be pos- itive or negative, 5; is the rate of entropy generation due to irreversible processes inside the system. ‘The second law of thermodynamics requires S20 (2)‘Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacoustic Self Becited Oxilation 393, coldheat 4, hot heat exchanger thermoacoustic sta exchanger SS ae gz og H<«— t—>r 9, Fig. 1: Energy flows in a thermoacoustie engine with equal-sign corresponding to a reversible process. $ can be positive or negative, depending upon $,. If $ is less than (or equals to) zero, the system will evolve toward (keep) ordered state. In a thermoacoustic engine, a stack is located in the channel together with two heat exchangers (see Fig. 1). The net entropy flow from heat exchangers to working fluid is 8 = Hs = BAS, (3) where S, and S; are the magnitude of the rate of entropy exchange between the working fluid and hot and cold heat exchanger, respectively, T; and are the temperatures of gas working fluid at the hot end and cold end, Qj and Qe are the heat flows transferred into and out of the gas working fluid, Basing on the Carnot, Taw, we have Q . Te ar (4) Substituting (4) into (3) yields S<0 (5) Here, thermodynamic symmetry is broken due to the heat exchangers. Negentropy flow is transported from cold end to hot end by oscillation of gas parcels Ina thermoacoustic system, gas parcels and local solid walls can be taken as subsystems. ‘The cooperative interactions among these subsystems may modulate temperature gradient as entropy wave that interacts with an acoustic wave. ‘As mentioned above, the thermodynamic mechanism of setf-organization pro- cess for a thermoacoustic self-excited oscillation is that (1) the system is in nonequi- ibrium ease transporting negentropy flow into the system with ieversible pro- cesses, (2) there exists thermodynamic non-symmetry, and (3) there are coopera- tive interactions among subsystems304 Q. Li, F. Wu, F. Guo, C. Wo, J. Wa 3. Minimum Entropy Flow Now we discuss the entropy flow $, basing on FT. Because of the heat transfer. the temperatures (I, and T,) of the working gas are different from the source id sink temperatures (Ti, and 7z). ‘The second law of thermodynamics requires Th > T, > Tz > Te (for a prime mover). The heat flows abserbed from the heat source through the hot heat exchanger and released to the heat sink through the cold heat exchanger may be obtained from Newton's heat transfer law Q = aF(T-T), ©) Qe = mFr(T-T.), ” where @ and ay are the overall heat transfer coefficients, F and F are the heat transfer surface areas of the hot and cold heat exchanger, respectively. The entropy generation rate in the heat transfer processes is Qh _ Qe’ Qn She = (E-m) +(aE-7y) > ° ® Eq, (8) represents the outside-irreversibility of the engine due to the heat transfers between the gas working fluid and the heat reservoir. In addition to heat resistance between the gas working fluid and the heat reser voirs, there is internal irreversibility in the system due to miscellancous factors such as viscosity, thermal diffusivity and non-equilibrium activities inside the system. Based on the second law of thermodynamics, the total consequence of these irre- versible effects can be reduced to the increase of entropy inerease for the heat sink in a eyele under the same heating quantity input. In other words, the heat flow (Q-) from the gas to the heat sink for the irreversible thermoacoustic engine is, larger than that (@Q,) for the endoreversible [24] thermoacousiic engine. ‘The fac- tor ¢ of internal irreversible degree describing the additional irreversibility effect is defined as follows @ o ) a Here, ¢ is assumed as a constant. depending on the hot temperature 7}, For an endoreversible thermoacoustic engine, we have [25] @ _ non (10) Combining (3), (9) and (10) gives Qe _ Se o= se = FZ >0 (u) Qn Sh with 6 = 11/7» (1 < 6 <74/T.). Combining (3), (6), (7) ane (11) yields the net work flow W and the magnitude of negentropy flow Seq as follows obi Pe (Th = 61,)(1- (12)‘Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacoustic Sel Excited Os:illation 395 Blan Fib +02) _poragFiFx(6— 1)(Th — dT) a Fi@T, + a2FdT.L (ar Fig + a2F2) 1y(T - 67) Sea (13a) a1a2F, Sia (130) eiFidT + an FOTe ‘Thus, Se, is an increasing function of the temperature Tj, due to dSeq/aT) > 0. ‘The temperature ratio 6 of the working gas assumed to be linearly proportional to the temperature ratio T,/T. of heat reservoirs is given by b= at (a) with @ (Te/T, 7, namely 6 branch of heat conduction (HW = 0) 4 sof (15) 1-7) branch of settexcited oscillation (W #0) 1Bq. (15) isan empirical formula with b > 0 being constant, which can be obtained by the parameter identification. The factor 6 of internal irreversible degree in the branch of oscillation is less than that in the branch of non-osellation owing to the ordered sound work generation. ‘The magnitude of negentropy flow S:q as a function of Th is schematically shown in Fig. 2. From the figure (or from (13a) or (13b)), it may be seen that Seq in the oscillation branch is less than that in heat conduction branch. It turns out that beyond 7} the former branch is realized and the fui begins to oscillate spontancously basing on the law of minimizing entropy flow. Since entropy is a state parameter, for a steady cycle ther> must be $= 8.458, =0 (1b) ‘Thus Si = Se = Sea (16) ‘Therefore the law of minimizing entropy flow is equivalent to the law of minimizing entropy generation rate, From (1) and the thermodynamic condition $ < 0 of seli-excited oscillation, the threshold value Ty; of the hot temperature can be obtained. In [24] we have found the rate of entropy generation ds; in unit volume fluid. 1 poPRR , VPP at Poy © w(1— Py) dx poCyut_pdTyy? pow Fy + agra) (P+ F -2FV PH] + (17)396 Q. Li, F. Wa, F. Guo, C. Wa, J. Wa Seltercited oscillation #0 ™ qt Fig. 2: The entropy flow Scq as a function of the hot temperature T), where Fi, Fa, Fi Fy are constants, P, = Pi(x) and u; = w(2) are the section average of disturbanee pressure and the section average of cisturbance velocity, Tm = (Th + Te)/2 is mean temperature, dTy/dz = (I, ~ 7.)/1 is longitudi temperature gradient, w, po, Cp, ! and P, are respectively the angular frequency. the local mean density, the heat capacity, the length of the channel and the Prandt number. From (17) the total rate of entropy generation of the fluid can be written in the following form A pwBiFy | 2VPrBoks dTy Si = oplG * IB de (as) oCpBs_ (aT PuwABsP + sae (Ge ) (ey +B 2VP)| + re where 1 = (a) y= ate = | [m(2)Pdx Be fir Pde, By = [aa Bs [' (oP are constants, A is the cross-sectional area of the channel . With the aid of eqs. (13b), (18) and the thermodynamic condition Siq > $j of self-excited oscillation, the threshold value Tj; of the hot temperature can be obtained from the following formula yagi Fy(p — 1)(Ty = 8Te) A [eB F | VP BaF (By de on FioTy + nF aera) Uae, * =P + pees (2) Fone -anVP)] +‘Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacousti Solf-Excited Oxillation 307 Equation (19) is a enbie equation related to Tj, which can be solved by algebraic 4. Linearized Stability Analysis ‘The basic governing equations for fluid assumed as an ideal gas are the continuity equation, the momentum equation, the energy equation and the state equation, ‘They can be given as follows [5] 20 , ou) a oe ~° du OP, ae vu, °a a (20) or | ary) (oP, aP 0Oo( Fr tuge)- (Frege p= 0lT,P), where p, u, P, T, 4, Cp, and k are the density, the velocity, the pressure, the temperature, the viscosity, the heat capacity and the thermal conductivity, re spectively. It is evident that the stationary solution of (20) is, = - = =T=7. +28 pam, u=0, P=R, T=%=T+2? (21) Here, subscript 0 denotes the local mean value. ‘The disturbing state of the system governed by (20) can be expressed as p=pt rtp, usmti, P=P+P+Pe, T=T+T+T (22) with subscript 1 and 2 denoting the first-order and the second-order disturbed quantities. Where po, uo, To equilibrium parameters of system, pi, ui, T P, make the system bias equilibrium and induce an oscillation with a fundaan tal frequency, the nonlinear disturbances po, uz, T2, P3 induce a high-frequency harmonic in the system. Substituting (22) into (20) yields approximately, «© for the first-order term: Bor , ua at ar (3) Cy (2 4, -9F7 _ win,398 Q.Li, F. Wa, F. Guo, C. Wa, J. Wa «* for the second-order term: (2a) ) — (a aR) _ vin, “a Be where V2 is the transverse component of the Laplacian, which depends on the geometry of the fuid channel, Tis worth noticing that (23) is the linearized form of (20). In (28), employing the representation e™"" for the time with w being real number gives the time- independent equation [26 aL au, z es a = -YP,/+ BU, with ionpo 2 = 50h) i y= M4 eo-nh en) p= tinh Late a = f)0=p)T de? where U; = J, usds is volume velocity, f,, fy and 7 ate the section average of the viscous dissipation function, the section average of the thermal dissipation function and the ratio of isobaric to isochoric specific heat, respectively. Here, Z and Y are called as the series impedance in unit length channel and the shunted admittance of unit length flu ‘The time-dependent solution of (23) consists of the time-independent solution of (25) and the oscillation factor e*. ‘Therefore, as Ty > Tj the arbitrary initial state deviated from the stationary state caused by disturbance does not decay to the stationary state, but evolves toward the periodic oscillation solution. This oscillation is a stationary periodic oscillation corresponding to a non-isentropic oscillation in the thermodynamic plane as shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3, Ch is the sound velocity and pc denotes the variation of volume. In (25), the term AU; related to the flux Uy is a feedback with 8 being a complicated nonlinear function describing the comprehensive effeet of following factors, namely temperature gradient, thermodynamic propecties of fluid, acous- ic field phase shift and geometric factor of the channel. ‘Thus, U; is a current controllable current source, and 9 is the source parameter. This comcides with"Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacoustic Sel Excited Oscillation 399) P 4. sigh ine a fsenropic oscillation b Ay 1 atte: non scotopic osilation 0 H Hi 2 P% Pay Fig. 3: Non-isentropie oscillation in the thermodynamic plate Zoe RG) Pioetx) Yor t) Bdx) U, U@) Upetax) Fig. 4: An active network for selfexcited thermoacoustic oscillation the result of deduction by thermodynamic consideration, since the thermodynamic xnon-isentropie eycle occurring in the channel with temperature gradient is the re- sult of coupling by the longitudinally propagating pressure wave and the transver- sal heat wave, which is modulated by the displacement of fluid parcels [27,28 ‘The transversal heat wave causes the variation of density of fluid parcels. ‘This variation in turn results in an inerement, of volumetric flow rate oscillation. So, the transversal heat wave results in a source of flux increment in acoustic fel, i.e. current source. Equation (25) describes therefore an active thermoacoustic network shown in Fig. 4400 QU, P. Wu, F. Guo, €. Wa, J. Wa 5. Nonlinear Disturbance ‘Taking into account the effect of the second-order disturbed quantities, we solve nonlinear equation (24). For the second-order acoustic quantities, employing the representation e'" for the time with wy being real number, we have from (24) we = Qa (29) Eq. (29) points that the nonlinear disturbance induces a harmonic with double fundamental frequency in the system, whose amplitude is less than that of the fundamental frequency wave. It is the harmonic with twice furdamental frequency hat reflects the characteristic of a parametric resonance. Therefore, the thermoa- coustic self-exited oscillation is of the characteristic of a parametric. resonance. ‘The thermoacoustie sel-excited oscillation takes place when the hot temperature Th exceeds the threshold value 7. It is noteworthy that «1, w, are independent oon the initial condition, and (25) and (24), from which the tine factors e*" and ce" have been separated, are time-independent. ‘The amplitude of Pi, Ui, Tr px and Ps, Us, To, pz are therefore independent on initial ecndition. ‘Thus, this oscillation remains to be a non-isentropic oscillation, which corresponds to a limit eyele in the phase space. Conclusions ‘The results presented in this paper can be summarized as follows: 1. The thermodynamic conditions of thermoacoustie that the system is in non-equilibrium ease in which negentropy flows the system. There are the coherent and cooperative interactions among subsystems consisting of gas parcels and local solid walls. 2. There exists a threshold value Tj; of the hot temperature. When the hot temperature ‘is lower than Ff, the system is in the thermal conductive state or in the isentropic oscillation state without power output, and when 1, exceeds Tj, the system selects a mode having the minimizing entropy flow among the permissible modes. As Tj, > Ty, the arbitrary initial state of the system is ron-stationary state. ‘The system evolves toward the self-excited oscillation solution and oseillates permanent in this state. This oscillation is a non-isentropic oscillation with power output corresponding to a limit cycle in the phase space. 4, The effect of the second-order disturbed quantities on the system is the sec- ond harmonic generation, whose frequency is twice as large as fundamental frequency. Acknowledgements ‘This material is based upon work supported by the National Natural Science Fund ‘of China under the contract No. B060107-50276064.‘Thermodynamic Analysis on Thermoacoustic Sef-Excited Oseillation 401 Bibliography [h] G.W. 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