Onset Criteria for Bulk-Mode Thermoacoustic Instabilities in Supercritical Hydrocarbon Fuels

We have investigated supercritical-p (p > 1192 psi (8.22 MPa)) methanol at pressures up to 1645 psi (11.3 MPa) flowing through a heated tube at flow rates of 4-7 lb/hr (1.8-3.2 kg/hr). Tube heated lengths have been varied from 4 to 6 in (10 to 15 cm), internal diameters from 0.027 to 0.069 in (0.069 to 0.175 cm), and heat inputs between zero and 800 Watts. Fluid temperature at the tube inlet remained subcritical (T < 464°F (513K)); outlet temperatures were transcritical or supercritical. Two phenomena were observed: system-wide bulk-mode oscillations and localized acoustic modes. In the present study, modeling and predictive efforts are undertaken to characterize system-wide bulk-mode oscillations. The parameter space has been nondimensionalized, yielding four dimensionless variables. Stability criteria based on these dimensionless groups have been established for two separate test articles and fluids; both criteria suggest that the heat required for the onset of oscillations is proportional to the mass flow rate times the mean pressure and inversely proportional to the fuel density.

A Novel High Q Lamé-Mode Bulk Resonator with Low Bias Voltage

This work reports a novel silicon on insulator (SOI)-based high quality factor (Q factor) Lamé-mode bulk resonator which can be driven into vibration by a bias voltage as low as 3 V. A SOI-based fabrication process was developed to produce the resonators with 70 nm air gaps, which have a high resonance frequency of 51.3 MHz and high Q factors over 8000 in air and over 30,000 in vacuum. The high Q values, nano-scale air gaps, and large electrode area greatly improve the capacitive transduction efficiency, which decreases the bias voltage for the high-stiffness bulk mode resonators with high Q. The resonator showed the nonlinear behavior. The proposed resonator can be applied to construct a wireless communication system with low power consumption and integrated circuit (IC) integration.

Differential impedance spectra analysis reveals optimal actuation frequency in bulk mode acoustophoresis

This work reports a method to select the optimal working frequency in transversal bulk resonator acoustophoretic devices by electrical impedance measurements. The impedance spectra of acoustophoretic devices are rich in spurious resonance peaks originating from different resonance modes in the system not directly related to the channel resonance, why direct measurement of the piezoelectric transducer impedance spectra is not a viable strategy. This work presents, for the first time, that the resonance modes of microchip integrated acoustophoresis channels can be identified by sequentially measuring the impedance spectra of the acoustophoretic device when the channel is filled with two different fluids and subsequently calculate the Normalized Differential Spectrum (NDS). Seven transversal bulk resonator acoustophoretic devices of different materials and designs were tested with successful results. The developed method enables a rapid, reproducible and precise determination of the optimal working frequency.