HumCooler: Heat Sources and Sinks

HumCooler: Heat Sources and Sinks
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The final pieces of the HumCooler puzzle are where the heat comes from (source) and where it goes (sink). Most laboratory work on thermoacoustic engines uses electric pumps to circulate coolant, and/or electric fans to dissipate heat. We are seeking ways to build a HumCooler that does not require electricity.
Heat sources
Ideally, we want the HumCooler to run on solar power. The idea is as simple as a parabolic mirror or other solar collector, focusing sunlight on a blackened plate of copper. In practice, we need to consider moving the mirror to follow the sun's track across the sky, and ways to maximize the collector temperature by minimizing radiant and convective losses.
Heat can also be generated from burning some kind of fuel. This will require a slightly different setup from a solar collector, but it would be helpful to have a setup that can do both, allowing fuel as a backup on cloudy days or at night.
Heat sinks
In general, the heat sink will be ambient air, and an array of fins will work as a radiator to make thermal connection with the air. In practice, we'll probably need some way to blow air across or through the radiator.
Best idea so far is a chimney arrangement, with heat sink fins at the bottom, and the heat source at the top, and a vertical enclosure or tube, open at top and bottom. Air heated by the heat source at the top will rise and draw more air in at the bottom, to cool the heat sink fins. However, we want to minimize loss of heat at the heat source, and we don't know yet how much heat can be spared from the hot end without sacrificing overall efficiency.

This page maintained by Wil Howitt
Last updated 4 June 2003