This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
A promising candidate for compact electricity generation and refrigeration is a thermoacoustic engine integrated with a heat source and an electroacoustic transformer. Thermoacoustic systems are environmentally friendly, highly reliable due to their simple structure involving a minimal number of moving parts, and potentially highly efficient. The general objectives of this project are to understand the fundamentals of oscillatory gas thermodynamics and heat transfer in miniature enclosures, to develop efficient solutions for small scale energy conversion, and to advance education in high performance energy systems.
Intellectual Merit: There is evidence that use of tortuous porous materials as stacks or regenerators in thermoacoustic devices can raise the efficiency of small scale thermoacoustic systems. To understand the oscillatory gas thermodynamics and heat transfer, and implement miniature devices with high performance, fundamental research is required that addresses several problems important in small scale systems. These problems include thermoacoustic transport in tortuous porous media, strong non uniformity of acoustic and temperature fields in the system elements, mitigation of viscous and thermal losses, and coupling with small heat sources and electroacoustic transformers. The research involves graduate and undergraduate students and focuses on: (1) analytical and numerical analysis of small scale thermoacoustic phenomena, (2) macroscale experiments under conditions specific to small scale systems, and (3) small scale tests with optimized miniature thermoacoustic devices.
Broader Impacts: The development of compact thermoacoustic energy conversion devices will enable implementation of a variety of small scale systems, such as MEMS, sensor networks, and unmanned vehicles. Thermoacoustic systems can also be used for waste heat recovery and conversion. Improved understanding of thermoacoustics at small scales will benefit emerging biomedical applications, such as thermoacoustic tomography and therapy. The educational plan related to the research will improve the quality of undergraduate and graduate education in the energy area. This will be done by integrating research into curricula and developing workshops for summer schools. Students from underrepresented groups will be recruited as research assistants. Research results and education innovations will be disseminated through publications, the internet, and in short courses during summer schools.
