The influence of the resonator shape on nonlinear acoustic field in a thermoacous- tic engine is studied. The resonator of themoacoustic engine is boundary driving by a piston at one end, and the other end of it is rigid closed. A one-dimensional wave equation that accounts for gas dynamic nonlinearities and viscous dissipation in the resonator is established based on the governing equations of viscous hydromechanics. The nonlinear wave equation is solved using approximate Galerkin method. The nonlinear acoustic field in four different types of shaped resonators including hyperbolical, exponential, conical and sinusoidal are obtained and compared with that of a cylindrical resonator. It is found that the amplitude and wave- form of the pressure are strongly affected by the resonator shape, the driving amplitude and the oscillation frequency of the piston. Waveform distortion, resonance frequency shift and hysteresis are observed, when the piston oscillation amplitude is large enough. The advantages of shaped resonator for thermoacoustic engine lie in inhibition of higher order harmonics and improvement of pressure ratio, etc.
Standing-wave tube with abrupt section （STAS） was a dissonant standing-wave tube whose higher resonance frequencies were not integral multiplies of the first one. Making use of the dissonant property of STAS and through the optimization of the system, extremely nonlinear pure standing-wave field of 180 dB at the first resonance frequency and that of 177 dB at the second resonance frequency have been obtained. At the two resonance frequencies, distortion of waveform and saturation of harmonics were studied experimentally, but saturation did not appear even though under such high sound pressure levels. However, while nonlinear sound field was experimentally studied at the third resonance frequency, it was found that the frequency for the second harmonic of the third resonance frequency was close to the sixth resonance frequency of the STAS and the distortion of waveform and the saturation of harmonies appeared as the sound pressure level approached 170 dB.
