The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 11, 1999
Filed:
Nov. 26, 1997
Thomas J Hofler, Monterey, CA (US);
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
This invention describes a new geometry for a heat driven thermoacoustic me mover (i.e. acoustic motor) and its application to a thermoacoustic refrigerator and to an electricity generator. The heat driven acoustic refrigerator has no moving parts, and is thus extremely reliable, simple, and cheap to manufacture. Unlike previous heat driven acoustic cooling engines, it has good efficiency and compactness and is easy to start, avoiding destructively high temperatures upon start-up. The cooling engine is saleable over an extremely wide range of cooling capacities from integrated circuit and sensor cooling to building air-conditioning. The electricity generating engine has modest efficiency, but may be attractive in remote applications where high-reliability or low cost or low environmental noise or solar powering is important. The generator is likely to be most attractive in capacities of a few kW to below 100 W where a tiny engine would be impractical using other technologies.