Tiny thermoacoustic engines pave the way for screaming gadgets

Looks like all that heat generated by your laptop may finally be useful for something other than frying eggs -- a group of grad students led by professor Orest Symko at the University of Utah has unveiled an array of "thermoacoustic" engines that turn heat into sound, which can be directed at a piezoelectric mechanism to produce electricity. The US Army-funded research seems promising but is obviously still in its infancy -- one of the designs the researchers demonstrated is half the size of a penny but pumps out 120dB of noise (about the same as a siren), while another bumped out over 135dB, (which is roughly equivalent to a jackhammer). The team expects that future, smaller designs will work at ultrasonic frequencies outside the range of human hearing. Although we're not expecting hybrid-siren-powered laptops to hit anytime soon, you Utes out there may want to invest in some earplugs -- Professor Symko says they'll be testing these designs at the University's water-heating facility in the next year.

[Via InformationWeek]

[Logan @ Jun 5th 2007 8:19PM]

rock on utes!!

[Lee Fellows @ Oct 7th 2007 12:31PM]

Readers interested in thermoacoustic engines might like to investigate the company that has been building them since 1985:

http://www.io.com/~frg

[Lebeu @ Jun 5th 2007 9:08PM]

Heh, well the piezoelectric mechanism sounds feasible nevertheless. When OS crashes, you get more battery life ;)

[kakapo @ Jun 5th 2007 9:42PM]

Why not use TECs to convert directly from heat to electricity? Or is there something special in the use of piezieos?

Probably graduate funding - most especially at the U of U. The biggest funding magnet in the known world. They did build the first artifical heart and have been able to fund literally anything since. $2 million bucks!!!

[paul34 @ Jun 5th 2007 9:49PM]

Is this the future of viable wireless power transmission?

I'm betting its probably for smaller range power generation, huh? Dash my hopes =(

[paul34 @ Jun 5th 2007 9:51PM]

Ugh. nevermind. Oh-so-smart me just noticed that the actual "wireless" part of this isn't actually carrying electricity.

I guess it doesn't make sense to put generators on every device...

[mister reaper @ Jun 5th 2007 11:26PM]

upscale the technology to convert all of the waste heat produced by automobiles into electricity.

[Devin @ Jun 5th 2007 11:31PM]

Go Utes!

It'll be interesting to see where they go with this, I wonder if any news of it would make it into the chrony. What could be the possible applications? It would be interesting to see if they could send energy lost to heat back to the batteries. Popular Science had an article showing a five stroke engine that used an extra 'steam' stroke to recover some of the heat produced by the engine...

[Chris @ Jun 6th 2007 6:48AM]

Blue scream of death?

[Scooter @ Jun 6th 2007 7:11AM]

sounds perfect for a digital whistling kettle. Cup of tea, anyone?

[chris-t4 @ Jun 6th 2007 9:29AM]

Great. Now the inconsiderate morons that thump their car speakers for everyone to hear can annoy everyone on their cell phones too.

[FreshJulius @ Jun 6th 2007 9:56AM]

Poor dogs...

[Dhrubo @ Jul 8th 2007 9:33AM]

can not we turn sound to electricity directly? because here we actually do this.