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Thermodynamics

Cool sounds

Nature volume 394, pages 623–624 (1998)Cite this article

The turbines and crankshafts of the mechanical engineers have proved to be very useful, as everyone knows. But they produce noise, and unfortunately need oiling every now and again. How much better if engines could be constructed whose moving parts have been eliminated! Solar cells, for the production of electricity, are one way to go: the result is an elegant ‘engine’ in which only the electrons are the moving parts. In a paper1 in Physical Review Letters , Reid, Ward and Swift describe another, but less familiar, transition to engines without moving parts. Moreover, by using a single gas both as the working part of the engine and as a heat-exchange medium, an old theoretical efficiency limit can be transgressed.

The principle that they explore is embodied in the thermoacoustic thermal engine and the closely related thermoacoustic refrigerator2. In a thermoacoustic heat engine, sound waves are generated by a heat flow, and the oscillatory motion of the gas in the sound wave is the only moving part in the thermoacoustic set-up.

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Figure 1: A thermoacoustic refrigerator with an externally applied flow.

References

  1. Reid, R. S., Ward, W. C. & Swift, G. W. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4617–4620 (1998).

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  2. Swift, G. W. Physics Today 48, No. 7, 22-28 (1995).

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  1. the Faculty of Mathematical Studies, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO9 5NH, UK

    Peter T. Landsberg

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  1. Peter T. Landsberg
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Landsberg, P. Cool sounds. Nature 394, 623–624 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/29184

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