TY - JOUR N2 - A thermoacoustic heat engine (TAHE) converts heat into acoustic power with no moving parts. It exhibits several advantages over traditional engines, such as simple design, stable functionality, and environment-friendly working gas. In order to further improve the performance of TAHE, stack parameters need to be optimized. Stack’s position, length and plate spacing are the three main parameters that have been investigated in this study. Stack’s position dictates both the efficiency and the maximum produced acoustic power of the heat engine. Positioning the stack closer to the pressure anti-node might ensure high efficiency on the expense of the maximum produced acoustic power. It is noticed that the TAHE efficiency can further be improved by spacing the plates of the stack at a value of 2.4 of the thermal penetration depth, δk. Changes in the stack length will not affect the efficiency much as long as the temperature gradient across the stack, as a ratio of the critical temperature gradient Γ; is more than 1. Upon interpreting the effect of these variations, attempts are made towards reaching the engine’s most powerful operating point. L1 - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/Content/84846/PDF/06_paper.pdf L2 - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/Content/84846 PY - 2014 IS - No 1 EP - 127 DO - 10.2478/meceng-2014-0006 KW - thermoacoustic KW - stack KW - anharmonic KW - resonator KW - engine KW - optimization A1 - Nouh, Mostafa A. A1 - Arafa, Nadim M. A1 - Abdel-Rahman, Ehab PB - Polish Academy of Sciences, Committee on Machine Building VL - vol. 61 DA - 2014 T1 - Stack parameters effect on the performance of anharmonic resonator thermoacoustic heat engine SP - 115 UR - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/84846 T2 - Archive of Mechanical Engineering ER -