What are the hurdles to commercialization of thermoacoustic technology?
The largest hurdle to commercialization is the “talent bottleneck.” Due to the novelty of thermoacoustic technology, there are very few people who have the combination of expertise in acoustics, transduction, heat exchanger design, and instrumentation required to produce complete thermoacoustic cooling systems. There are not even people with that combination of expertise outside of the thermoacoustic community who can be called upon to provide an independent assessment of the current state of the technology or the prospects for future improvements. There is also no existing supplier base or commercial infrastructure which is currently mass-producing components such as inexpensive, high-power, high-efficiency (narrow bandwidth) loudspeakers (linear motors) or heat exchangers optimized for high-frequency oscillatory flow of compressed gases. Suitable designs for such linear motors exist [US Pat. No. 5,389,844 (1995) and US Pat. No. 6,307,287 (23 Oct 2001)]. Until there are component supp
