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

正如奖学金申请中所讨论的，热声学是技术发展的新领域之一，在包括美国、欧洲大陆、中国和日本在内的越来越多的国家越来越受欢迎。应用热声学原理的智力挑战在于结合来自广泛研究背景的专业知识，包括先进的流体力学，传热和声波传播过程，旨在开发不需要运动部件的能量传递机制的新概念。在驻波装置中，存在于热声叠加中的声波施加工作流体的压力和速度振荡，具有相对相位差，使可压缩流体经历类似于斯特林循环的热力学循环。这种现象可用于下一代节能环保的发动机和冰箱。在这个广泛的领域内，相关的拨款将更详细地研究驻波热声设备内部组件的设计，特别是解决与选择用于构建热声堆栈的工作流体和材料有关的设计问题，优化堆栈和热交换器之间的传热机制，以及设计堆栈的新配置，以最大限度地提高流体动力能量传递。该项目旨在创建设计指南，这些指南可以广泛提供给国际热声学界，并在奖学金框架下的另一个项目中得到有效利用，该项目致力于构建基于MEMS的小型化热声冷却器。

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.