Thermoacoustic Engines and Refrigerators

• Gregory W. Swift

  Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico

抄録

We ordinarily think of a sound wave in a gas as consisting of coupled pressure and displacement oscillations. However, temperature oscillations always accompany the pressure changes. The combination of all these oscillations, and their interaction with solid boundaries, produces a rich variety of “thermoacoustic” effects. Although these effects as they occur in everyday life are too small to be noticed, one can harness extremely loud sound waves in acoustically sealed chambers to produce powerful heat engines, heat pumps and refrigerators. Whereas typical engines and refrigerators have crankshaft-coupled pistons or rotating turbines, thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators have at most a single flexing moving part (as in a loudspeaker) with no sliding seals. Thermoacoustic devices may be of practical use where simplicity, reliability or low cost is more important than the highest efficiency (although one cannot say much more about their cost-competitiveness at this early stage).

収録刊行物

• Physics Today

  Physics Today 48 (7), 22-28, 1995-07-01

  AIP Publishing

キーワード

• General Physics and Astronomy

詳細情報

• CRID: 1361699994393881600
• NII論文ID: 10004021180
• DOI: 10.1063/1.881466
• ISSN: 19450699
• ISSN: 00319228
• ISSN: http://id.crossref.org/issn/00319228
• Web Site: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-pdf/48/7/22/8308469/22_1_online.pdf
• データソース種別:
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles