Measurements with wire mesh stacks in thermoacoustic prime movers.

Abstract

Measurements with various wire mesh ‘‘stacks’’ in two different thermoacoustic prime movers are presented. Stirling engine regenerators are commonly constructed by stacking disks cut from wire mesh (i.e., wire cloth or wire screen) in a tube. In addition to simplicity, this has two advantages for prime movers. First, the wire is relatively impervious to moderately high temperatures and second, the effective thermal conductivity of the structure is one to two orders of magnitude lower than a comparable metal ‘‘parallel plate’’ structure. Since no linear theoretical thermoacoustic models exist for these wire mesh stacks, this approach is simply to measure the performance of several different mesh stacks. Initial results indicate reasonably good onset temperature and amplitude performance. [Work supported by Office of Naval Research.]