Thermoacoustic engines have promised to be ultra-reliable heat engines. However, there have not been any reported examples of machines capable of displacing alternative technology in real-world applications to date. We have integrated a high efficiency (94%) recuperated burner, a high efficiency (87%) alternator and our high-frequency thermoacoustic engine to produce a compact 1 kW output 22% fuel-to-electric efficiency genset ready for real-world deployment. This fuel-to-electric efficiency is better than the previous best reported heat-to-electric efficiencies in a thermoacoustic engine. The many design innovations employed in the three subsystems of the genset to achieve this result are described. The electric output of 1 kW is large enough for numerous applications. This genset does not require any tight tolerance or exotic parts and should be amenable to low-cost volume manufacturing. The lack of any sliding or rotating parts results in a minimal maintenance extreme reliability engine. Experimental results are presented on the performance of the genset as a function of heater temperature, coolant temperature and output power. The predictions of the thermoacoustic model used to design the engine are compared with these experimental results.

热声发动机已承诺成为超可靠的热机。然而，迄今为止，还没有任何能够在现实世界应用中取代替代技术的机器的报告示例。我们集成了一个高效 (94%) 的换热式燃烧器、一个高效 (87%) 的交流发电机和我们的高频热声发动机，以生产出紧凑的 1 kW 输出 22% 的燃料到电力效率发电机组，为实际部署做好准备. 这种燃料-电效率优于之前报道的热声发动机中最好的热-电效率。描述了在发电机组的三个子系统中采用的许多设计创新来实现这一结果。1 kW 的电力输出足以满足众多应用的需求。该发电机组不需要任何严格的公差或特殊零件，应该适合低成本批量制造。没有任何滑动或旋转部件导致极少维护的极端可靠性发动机。实验结果显示了发电机组的性能与加热器温度、冷却剂温度和输出功率的关系。用于设计发动机的热声模型的预测与这些实验结果进行了比较。