Preface vList of symbols viii1 Introduction 11.1 Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Length scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.3 Overview and examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81.3.1 Standing-wave heat engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91.3.2 Standing-wave refrigerator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141.3.3 Orifice pulse-tube refrigerator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171.3.4 Thermoacoustic-Stirling heat engine . . . . . . . . . . 221.4 Thermoacoustics and conventional technology . . . . . . . . . 251.5 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 Background 302.1 Laws of thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302.1.1 The first law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302.1.2 The second law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342.2 Laws of fluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382.2.1 Continuity (mass) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392.2.2 Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402.2.3 Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412.2.4 Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432.3 Ideal gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442.3.1 Thermodynamic properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442.3.2 Transport properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472.3.3 Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472.3.4 Mixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482.4 Some consequences of the laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482.4.1 Carnot's eficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482.4.2 Maxwell relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Simple oscillations 553.1 The harmonic oscillator and complex notation . . . . . . . . . 553.2 Acoustic approximations to the laws of gases . . . . . . . . . 593.3 Some simple oscillations in gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643.3.1 The gas spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643.3.2 Simple sound waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684 Waves 724.1 Lossless acoustics and ideal resonators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724.2 Viscous and thermal effects in large channels . . . . . . . . . 794.2.1 Viscous resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804.2.2 Thermal-relaxation conductance . . . . . . . . . . . . 854.3 Inviscid boundary-layer thermoacoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . 894.4 General thermoacoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924.4.1 The math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924.4.2 The ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 Power 1125.1 Acoustic power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135.1.1 Acoustic power dissipation with dTm/dx = 0 . . . . . 1165.1.2 Acoustic power with zero viscosity . . . . . . . . . . . 1195.2 Total power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255.2.1 Traveling waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315.2.2 Standing waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
About the Author: Greg Swift received his PhD in physics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1980, and has worked in the Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) ever since. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, of the American Physical Society, and of LANL. He received the Acoustical Society's Silver Medal in Physical Acoustics in 2000, an award that has been given, on average, only every three years. He received the US Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award in 2004, in the category of Environmental Science and Technology. The main focus of Greg's research has been the invention and development of novel energy-conversion technologies. He enjoys the thermodynamics of heat engines and refrigerators, the thermodynamics of non-ideal-gas fluids, physical acoustics, hydrodynamics, and low-temperature physics. He hopes that thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators will play a meaningful role in the energy economy of the 21st century.

At Los Alamos, Greg has mentored two Master's students, three Ph.D. students, and 13 postdocs, and enjoyed significant partnerships with ten corporate collaborators. He is co-author (or, occasionally, sole author) of about 100 articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He is responsible for two dozen patents, and the thermoacoustics design and analysis software most commonly used worldwide--DeltaEC.