Thermoacoustic research at ETH Zürich in the 1990s

Abstract

The linear thermoacoustic theory was developed by N. Rott, formerly Professor at the Institute of Aerodynamics at ETH Zürich, in the late 1960s. Since then a couple of research projects in that field have been carried out under the supervision of Prof. Rott, and more recently at the Institute of Process Engineering. The talk will give a short historical summary of the research activities at ETH Zürich and the latest work undertaken at the Institute of Process Engineering will be presented. This research was aimed at increasing the power density of thermoacoustic engines. Instead of the ‘‘stack,’’ usually consisting of ‘‘long’’ parallel plates, short parallel-plate segments were used, which were randomly oriented to each other. This alternative stack arrangement was expected to benefit from improved heat transfer characteristics and an anisotropic thermal conductivity. The results of a simple numerical model and experiments carried out with a thermoacoustic heat pump confirmed these expectations and will be presented in the talk. a)Former affiliation.