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

正如与这笔赠款相关的奖学金申请中所讨论的那样，热声学是技术开发的新领域之一，在越来越多的国家变得越来越受欢迎，包括美国、欧洲大陆、中国和日本。应用热声原理所面临的智力挑战在于，如何将各种研究背景的专业知识结合起来，包括先进的流体力学、传热学和声波传播过程，以开发不需要移动部件的能量传递机制的新概念。在驻波装置中，热声堆叠中存在的声波施加具有相对相位差的工作流体的压力和速度振荡，使可压缩流体经历类似于斯特林循环的热力学循环。这一现象可以用于下一代节能和环保的发动机和冰箱。在这一广泛的领域内，相关的赠款将更详细地研究驻波热声装置的内部部件的设计，特别是解决与选择用于构建热声堆的工质和材料、优化堆和热交换器之间的热传递机制以及设计新的堆结构以最大化流体动力能量传递有关的设计问题。该项目将致力于创建可广泛提供给国际热声学家社区的设计指南，并在奖学金保护伞下致力于建造基于MEMS的微型热声制冷器的另一个项目中得到有用的利用。

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.