Anisotropic Heat-Exchanger/Stack Configurations for Thermoacoustic Heat Engines.

The goal of this project is to develop novel configurations of heat pumping elements and heat exchangers for thermoacoustic heat engines. The approach will be to use anisotropic systems, such as made possible by glass capillary array technology. This approach will allow a heat exchange fluid to flow directly across the heat pumping element of the thermoacoustic heat engine the stack , eliminating the necessity of separate heat exchangers and possibly improving efficiency. The feasibility of the approach has been demonstrated with numerical calculations, and a major milestone has been the successful fabrication of a test prototype of an anisotropic stack heat exchanger unit.