Design studies of internal components configuration in the standing wave thermoacoustic device

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As discussed in the Fellowship application, to which this grant would be associated , thermoacoustics is one of the new areas of technological development, which becomes increasingly popular in a growing number of countries including the US, continental Europe, China and Japan. The intellectual challenge in applying the principles of thermoacoustics lies in combining the expertise from a wide spectrum of research backgrounds including advanced fluid mechanics, heat transfer and acoustic wave propagation processes, with the aim to develop novel concepts of energy transfer mechanisms, which do not require moving parts. In the standing wave devices an acoustic wave present in a thermoacoustic stack imposes pressure and velocity oscillations of the working fluid, with relative phase difference, enabling the compressible fluid to undergo a thermodynamic cycle similar to the Stirling cycle. This phenomenon can be used in the next generation of energy efficient and environmentally friendly engines and refrigerators.Within that broad area the associated grant would look in more detail at the design of the internal components of a standing wave thermoacoustic device and in particular address the design issues related to selection of working fluids and materials used to construct the thermoacoustic stack, optimisation of the heat transfer mechanisms between the stack and heat exchangers and design of novel configurations of the stack to maximise the hydrodynamic energy transfer. The project will aim at creating design guidelines which could be made widely available to the international community of thermo-acousticians and also usefully utilised during another project under the Fellowship umbrella devoted to constructing a MEMS based miniaturised thermoacoustic cooler.