Sounds Cool - Thermoaccoustic Refrigeration
 

Neat. I wonder how powerful these units will be as compared to more conventional refrigerators. Efficiency will also be a consideration.

Sounds like it could really work well, but I have doubts that it would create a huge temperature differential without a cascaded system. Maybe they'll get it working.

Interesting that they gloss over the use of inert refrigerants like nitrogen and CO2, or the extremely cheap and easy to work with refrigerant propane.

I heard on NPR that they have running units and want to se how well they last b4 any major implementation.

It should work very well, it is essentially a Stirling-style heat pump. The interesting thing is the use of a loudspeaker as a driving diaphragm and a passive diaphragm in resonance, essentially replacing pistons in the Stirling engine. Just as the pistons might be externally driven in a Stirling engine to use it as a heat pump, so the diaphragm is driven in this model. Rather than connecting the pistons (diaphragms) mechanically they are connected by resonance.

I'd say it's a pretty cool idea, and should have near as good efficiency as a Stirling heat pump without the manufacturing hassles of a Stirling engine.

Well, I hope they cool VERY well and are very efficient. We need technology breakthroughs like that.

Is there a more technical site with notes? I'm not that interested in watching video's.

I'm not too sure if this is a such a recent discovery, I remember reading about a prototype/lab thermo-acoustic refrigerator a _long_ time back ('94 or '95) in a science magazine. (chucked them all out about 2 months ago, dammit)
I'd be curious though to see whether its evolved into something usefull...

From what I've heard of this in the past, it doesn't use much power, but it also doesn't cool that well either. Stirling engines look much better.