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Frequently Asked Questions about Thermoacoustics

Jump to a specific question:
1. Since the acoustic amplitudes are so large within these devices, won't it be loud outside
too?
2. How efficient are thermoacoustic refrigerators?
2a. Could you say more about proportional control?
3. How large/heavy are thermoacoustic refrigerators compared to their vapor compression
counterparts?
4. What are the possible applications for thermoacoustic technology? Are they useful at all
temperatures?
5. How soon will we be able to purchase commercial thermoacoustic refrigerators and air
conditioners?
6. When thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners become commercially available,
will they cost more than their conventional vapor compression equivalents?
7. Although my home and car air conditioners require costly periodic maintenance, my
home refrigerator seems to work for ten to fifteen years without any maintenance. Will
there be maintenance problems with thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners?
8. Who is working on developing thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners?
9. What are the hurdles to commercialization of thermoacoustic technology?
10. What are the other alternative refrigeration techniques that are as environmentally
benign as thermoacoustics?
11. What are the outstanding research issues which should be addressed to understand how
to improve thermoacoustic refrigerator performance in the future?

1. Since the acoustic amplitudes are so large within these devices,

won't it be loud outside too?
Not if it is designed properly! The pressure amplitudes within the
thermoacoustic resonator are only a small fraction (typically 5%) of the
static internal pressures that are approximately 10 to 30 atmospheres. Given
the relatively small acoustic pressure amplitudes, a pressure vessel that is
strong enough to safely contain the static pressure cannot yield enough
under the acoustic pressure variations to radiate much sound to the
environment. If there is any perceptible acoustic radiation at all, it is usually
due to the small vibration of the resonator which can be minimized by
mounting the resonator on standard vibration isolators (springs). The
prototype that was built for Ben & Jerrys (called Bellows Bounce), for
example, was very quiet its sound pressure level at one meter away was
less than 60 dBA. During the debut of the prototype at a B&J Partner shop
on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, the noise generated by the
conventional refrigeration equipment was much louder than the quiet tone
generated the by the thermoacoustic prototype. (Back to Top)
2. How efficient are thermoacoustic refrigerators?
There are two classes of thermoacoustic machines, distinguished by the pore
size of the porous element in the machine that stores and releases thermal
energy during an acoustic period. When this element is loosely packed
compared to a acoustic thermal boundary layer (called a thermal
penetration depth) it is called a stack and the machine works best if the
acoustic phasing between pressure and volume velocity is nearly 90 (mostly
standing wave phasing). If the pore size of the thermal energy storage
element is small compared to a thermal penetration depth, then the element
is called a regenerator and the machine works best if the acoustic wave
phasing is predominantly in phase, like a traveling wave. The latter class of
machine is sometimes referred to as an acoustic-Stirling machine.
The efficiency of stack-based thermoacoustic refrigerators is 20-30% lower
than their vapor compression counterparts. Part of that lower efficiency is
due to the intrinsic irreversibility of the thermoacoustic heat transport
process in the stack. This intrinsic irreversibility is also a favorable aspect of
the cycle, since it makes for mechanical simplicity, with few or no moving
parts.
Breakthroughs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory [US Pat. No.
6,032,464 (7 Mar 2000)] and in the Netherlands [US Pat. No. 6,314,740 (13
Nov 2001)] in the late 1990s created the regenerator based concept and
these designs have made impressive improvements in efficiency by

removing the irreversibility. This efficiency enhancement comes at the cost

of increased complexity and the requirement to suppress streaming mass
flows however, through the use of clever acoustic feedback networks, the
complexity can be minimized and the streaming flows all but eliminated. The
Ben & Jerrys prototype (COPR = 19%) has been carefully measured to be as
efficient as the vapor compression unit that it replaces. Although
conventional ice cream storage units are not very efficient, the B&J
prototype has much room for efficiency improvement. The gap between the
efficiency of conventional refrigerators and thermoacoustic refrigerators is
largely due to technical immaturity. With time, improvements in heat
exchangers and other sub-systems should narrow the gap. It is also likely
that the efficiency in many applications will improve due only to the fact that
thermoacoustic refrigerators are well suited to proportional control. One can
easily and continuously control the cooling capacity of a thermoacoustic
refrigerator so that its output can be adjusted accurately for varying load
conditions. This could lead to higher efficiencies than conventional vapor
compression chillers that have constant displacement compressors and are
therefore only capable of binary (on/off) control. Proportional control avoids
losses due to start-up surges in conventional compressors and reduces the
inefficiencies in the heat exchangers, since the proportional systems can
operate over smaller temperature gaps between the coolant fluid and the
heat load. (Back to Top)
2a. Could you say more about proportional control?
The second law of thermodynamics sets an absolute limit on the
performance ("efficiency") of a refrigerator of any design. The larger the
temperature difference that a refrigerator must produce, the less efficient it
can be, even if it is perfectly designed and built. One feature of
thermoacoustic devices that may allow them to overcome some of the
inefficiency of the cycle is that they can use proportional control.
Proportional control means that the output of the device may be turned up
or down gradually depending on load conditions. A dimmer switch on a lamp
is an example of this kind of control. In contrast, an ordinary light switch is
an example of binary control - it is either on or off, with no in-between. A
vapor compression refrigerator uses binary control: it comes on for a while;
then it goes off. If the conditions require more output, the unit comes on
more frequently, but it is never partially on. A thermoacoustic cooler, on the
other hand, can be partially on. The advantage to this is that the less hard a
refrigerator is working, the more efficient it becomes. When producing
maximum output, a vapor compression refrigerator is more efficient than a
thermoacoustic fridge of the same capacity, but when less output is needed
(which is most of the time), the thermoacoustic device increases in
efficiency, but the vapor compression fridge does not.

There are other advantages to proportional control. You can imagine that it
would be nicer if your home air conditioner would keep the house at a
constant cool temperature rather than cycling between somewhat too hot
and somewhat too cold. Similarly, the performance and lifetime of some
types of electronics could be increase by the steadier temperatures available
through proportional control. Proportional control also eliminates the
potentially damaging "power surges" that occur throughout the electrical
system when the compressor in a conventional chiller turns on or off. (Back
to Top)
3. How large/heavy are thermoacoustic refrigerators compared to
their vapor compression counterparts?
For all thermodynamic devices, there will always be a trade-off between
efficiency and power density. For the devices built thus far (1,400 Btu/hr =
400 Wthermal and 36,000 Btu/hr = 10 kWthermal), the size and weight are
similar to their vapor compression equivalents. The cooling capacity of vapor
compression units depends upon operating pressure and the amount of
phase-change fluid. The size of a thermoacoustic device is determined
(roughly) by its operating frequency. If small size is important, higher
frequency operation may be required. (Back to Top)
4. What are the possible applications for thermoacoustic
technology? Are they useful at all temperatures?
At this point, we do not see any cooling application that is not suited to
thermoacoustics. Conventional, single-stage, electrically operated
thermoacoustic refrigerators can reach cold-side temperatures which are
two-thirds to three-quarters of ambient, so they are not well-suited to
cryogenic applications (T < -40 C = -40 F). Thermoacoustically driven
pulse-tube style refrigerators have been built at Los Alamos National Labs,
CFIC, Inc. (Troy, NY) and Praxair (Tonawanda, NY) that can reach the
cryogenic temperatures required to liquefy air or natural gas. In its early
commercial stages, thermoacoustic refrigerators will probably be limited to
niche applications such as in military systems which are required to operate
in closed environments and food merchandising where toxicity is an
important issue. As global environmental legislation, such as the Montreal
Protocols on Substances which Deplete Stratospheric Ozone and the Kyoto
Accord become more restrictive, we expect the scope of thermoacoustic
applications to expand both domestically and in emerging markets. (Back to
Top)
5. How soon will we be able to purchase commercial thermoacoustic
refrigerators and air conditioners?

A license for the intellectual property surrounding the Bellows Bounce

prototype is in the final stages of negotiations with a new company. Details
will be posted on this website as they become available, and also on the
corporations site. This entry into the commercial sphere is a big step for the
technology, although other companies have made some inroads into
commercialization of other kinds of thermoacoustic machines, notably CFIC
in Tonawanda, NY) and Praxair. Despite the formation of a new company
surrounding the new prototype designs, we expect that it will be at least 2-3
more years before thermoacoustic refrigerators start appearing in "specialty"
applications and probably longer before they start to appear in appliance
stores. (Back to Top)
6. When thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners become
commercially available, will they cost more than their conventional
vapor compression equivalents?
There are no intrinsically expensive components in thermoacoustic
refrigerators. They operate at pressures that are similar to vapor
compression refrigerators. Thermoacoustic refrigerators do not require any
exotic materials and do not depend upon close tolerances nor do they
require lubrication, since they have no sliding seals. Unlike vapor
compression refrigeration, which use the "working fluid" as the heat
transport fluid, all of the thermoacoustic refrigerators which provide more
that 10 to 20 Wthermal of cooling capacity have used secondary heat
transport fluids. This could increase the cost, since additional heat
exchangers and fluid pumps (or heat pipes) are required. On the other hand,
the separation of the working fluid and the heat transport fluids allow each
to be optimized independently. This could lead to more uniform thermal
distribution and higher efficiency that might increase acquisition cost but
reduces life-cycle costs. This is not a cost factor in many applications that
currently use secondary heat transport fluids. (Back to Top)
7. Although my home and car air conditioners require costly periodic
maintenance, my home refrigerator seems to work for ten to fifteen
years without any maintenance. Will there be maintenance problems
with thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners?
Thermoacoustic refrigerators should be at least as trouble-free as current
home refrigerators. Thermoacoustic refrigerators and air conditioners use
inert gases which will never be controlled substances and will always be
readily available (The atmosphere is 1% argon. The atmospheric
concentration of CO2 is only 0.03%.) Since they have no sliding seals, they
do not require lubrication. At the present time, we have not been able to
identify what will be the possible failure modes for thermoacoustic

refrigerators and air conditioners but the leading candidate is metal fatigue
in the elastic suspension. It appears that proper design of these springs can
lead to "infinite" lifetimes [US Pat. No. 6,307,287 (23 Oct 2001)].
The reason your home refrigerator is so trouble-free is that it uses CFCs
inside a hermetically sealed compressor. CFCs are compatible with
hydrocarbon lubricants (oil) that do not decompose when exposed to
electrical discharge. The new substitute chemicals are less stable than CFCs,
to prevent them from traveling up to the stratosphere and destroying the
ozone. This decreased chemical stability makes them incompatible with
hydrocarbon lubricants, so the compressors are far more difficult to
lubricate. Don't expect your new refrigerators, which will use HFCs, such as
R-134a, to be as robust. Both fixed and mobile air conditioners will also be
experiencing more maintenance problems now that CFCs are very expensive
and will eventually become unavailable at any cost. (Back to Top)
8. Who is working on developing thermoacoustic refrigerators and
air conditioners?
It is difficult to tell exactly how many groups are working on developing
thermoacoustic technology, either domestically or internationally.
Commercial refrigeration and air conditioning manufacturers do not
"advertise" their new product development efforts. Ford Motor Company is
the only industrial laboratory that has published their research in this area,
although IBM, and Modine Manufacturing (a heat exchanger manufacturer)
have been issued patents on thermoacoustic technology and Praxair has a
working device which uses a thermoacoustically-driven pulse-tube
refrigerator to liquefy natural gas. CFIC is a small technology consortium
that has several patents related to thermoacoustics. In Japan, there is an
association of 100 researchers from industry and academia who are working
on thermoacoustic refrigeration (including pulse-tube refrigerators).
There are several academic institutions and government laboratories which
are doing varying amounts of research on issues surrounding thermoacoustic
heat transport (e.g., U. Mississippi, Johns Hopkins, Ohio U., U. Utah, NIST, U.
Nevada - Desert Research Institute, etc.) but only Los Alamos National
Laboratory, the Naval Postgraduate School, Penn State University, Technical
University Eindhoven, and Purdue University have complete working
thermoacoustic cooling systems. Outside the United States, there are
academic and/or industrial efforts in at least the Netherlands, France,
England, China, Taiwan, Argentina, Bangladesh and South Africa.(Back to
Top)

9. What are the hurdles to commercialization of thermoacoustic

technology?
The largest hurdle to commercialization is the "talent bottleneck." Due to the
novelty of thermoacoustic technology, there are very few people who have
the combination of expertise in acoustics, transduction, heat exchanger
design, and instrumentation required to produce complete thermoacoustic
cooling systems. There are not even people with that combination of
expertise outside of the thermoacoustic community who can be called upon
to provide an independent assessment of the current state of the technology
or the prospects for future improvements.
There is also no existing supplier base or commercial infrastructure which is
currently mass-producing components such as inexpensive, high-power,
high-efficiency (narrow bandwidth) loudspeakers (linear motors) or heat
exchangers optimized for high-frequency oscillatory flow of compressed
gases. Suitable designs for such linear motors exist [US Pat. No. 5,389,844
(1995) and US Pat. No. 6,307,287 (23 Oct 2001)]. Until there are
component suppliers, it will be difficult to create a group of systems
assemblers who will market thermoacoustic devices.(Back to Top)
10. What are the other alternative refrigeration techniques that are
as environmentally benign as thermoacoustics?
Prior to the commercial introduction of CFCs for refrigeration and air
conditioning in the 1940's, ammonia was used as a working fluid for vapor
compression refrigeration in homes. It was abandoned due to its toxicity, but
is still in widespread use for industrial and agricultural applications. In
Europe, and particularly in Germany, hydrocarbons, such as propane and
butane, are used in small quantities for domestic refrigerators. Due to their
flammability and explosive potential, they may not be suitable for
applications requiring larger cooling capacities, such as air conditioners. (The
hydrocarbon issues are related to safety, not global warming).
Stirling cycle refrigerators also work best with inert gases and have
efficiencies that are equal to thermoacoustic machines. The drawback of
typical Stirling machines is that they are far more complicated and therefore
much more expensive to produce and maintain. It is also possible to produce
refrigerators that are based on solid-state thermoelectric materials and the
magnetocaloric effect in gadolinium. At the present time, they are far less
efficient and have very low power density compared to either thermoacoustic
or Stirling cycle refrigerators; additionally, the best thermoelectric materials
are both brittle and hydroscopic. (Back to Top)

11. What are the outstanding research issues which should be

addressed to understand how to improve thermoacoustic
refrigerator performance in the future?
The reason that thermoacoustic technology has progressed so rapidly during
the past decade is that there has been an excellent theoretical
understanding of the thermoacoustic heat pumping process which was
developed by N. Rott in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and by J. Wheatley
and G. Swift in the 1980's, and G. Swift in the 1990's. Unfortunately, that
understanding has thus far been limited to a fairly small portion of the
available "parameter space." In particular, existing models have been limited
to fairly low acoustic Mach Numbers (Mac < 3% or p1/pm < 5%), due to the
one-dimensional nature of the equations, the limitations of linear acoustics,
the absence of mean flow, and the assumption of a stable laminar boundary
layer.
Since the power density of thermoacoustic devices depends upon
(p1/pm)^2, there is quite a strong motivation to understand
thermoacoustics at higher amplitudes. Progress in this direction will require
the construction of thermoacoustic refrigerators which can achieve higher
acoustic Mach Numbers and theoretical advances which could require a
solution to the full non-linear thermo-hydrodynamic equations in two- or
three-dimensions.
It would also be useful to study new structures for components such as
stacks, regenerators, resonators, heat exchangers and electroacoustic driver
mechanisms. At the present time, there are no detailed models for the
stack/heat exchanger interface. There are no models for heat transport
between the thermoacoustically oscillating gas and the heat exchanger
surfaces which could be used to suggest what geometries would optimize the
useful transfer of heat on and off of the stack. All electrically-driven
thermoacoustic refrigerators to date have employed electrodynamic drive
mechanisms (moving coil or moving magnet). There are several "solid-state"
materials, such as piezoelectric and magnetostrictive compounds, which
have high energy densities and low losses, but which have not been adapted
to thermoacoustic loads. Rotary motors power most of the worlds machines.
What is the best way to incorporate such rotary drive mechanisms in
thermoacoustic devices?
The above is only a small subset of the possibilities that could lead to a more
complete understanding and better practical thermoacoustic devices. With
an increase in the number of working devices and motivated investigators,
the rate at which thermoacoustics will progress should increase steadily for
many more years. (Back to Top)