The proposed novel miniature thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system consists of a swirling combustion chamber with the chamber wall as the emitter, a heat-regeneration reverse tube, and a mixing-enhancement porous-medium fuel injector. The current novel TPV design improves the conventional miniature TPV problems of low and non-uniform illumination and incomplete combustion. The reverse tube is used to enforce flame attachment to the inner wall of the emitter by pushing the swirl recirculation zone back into the chamber and simultaneously redirecting the exit hot product gas for reheating the outer surface of the emitter. The porous medium fuel injector is used as a fuel/air mixing enhancer and as a flame stabilizer to anchor the flame. The complex flow structural mechanism of the porous medium and heat-recuperating reverse tube and their effects on mixing enhancement and flame stabilization in the meso-scale combustor
are delineated by numerical simulation. Flow structure improvement inside
the combustor by adjusting geometric and operational parameters for the
optimal output of the current TPV system is investigated and the results are discussed.