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Thermoacoustic heat engines convert heat into useful energy by generating acoustic waves from a heat source that can then be extracted as useful work. These engines are inexpensive, robust, versatile, and capable of extracting energy from a wide variety of heat sources ranging from waste heat from power plants to exhaust heat of vehicles. In this article, our investigation focuses on using simulation workflows to improve the performance of thermoacoustic engines. We begin with validating the workflows with published data for both traveling wave and standing wave thermoacoustic engines. Following that, we investigate the effect of changing the working fluid and the operating pressure to increase acoustic power. This study uses a coupled PowerFLOW™ and PowerTHERM™ methodology to simulate the buoyancy-driven flows that generate acoustic pressure waves. Good correlations were observed for both traveling and standing wave thermoacoustic engines.

Traditionally vehicles are designed for wind noise under ideal steady wind conditions. But, passenger comfort is affected by high modulation of cabin noise while cruising in traffic due to variations of instantaneous wind speed and direction from driving through large-scale turbulence. In consequence, designing a vehicle for the best performance in a low-turbulence wind tunnel may lead to issues during on-road conditions. To predict the interior noise corresponding to on-road turbulence, a simulation approach is proposed combining an upstream turbulence flow simulation with an SEA vehicle model. This work is an extension of existing well validated procedures for steady wind conditions. Time-segmented transient loads on panels and steady-state structural acoustics transfer functions are combined, producing interior noise results for a series of overlapping time segments.