1st Spanish Meeting on Thermoacoustics

The 1st Spanish meeting on thermoacousticswas organized by Mondragon Componentes and Centro Stirling, on February 27, 2018, took place in Aretxabaleta.  The thermoacoustic effect, already discovered by glass blowers in the 18th century, is gaining relevance because of the apparent constructive simplicity of the devices that can result in both generators and refrigerators and their scalability.  It is considered the last frontier of the Stirling world in which the function of pistons and displacements is replaced by pressure waves and, therefore, there are no moving parts, no frictions or inertias that generate vibrations or noises.  While its potential applications are estimated to be very broad-spectrum, today only the most advanced laboratories, such as the Alamos in the USA or NASA, are achieving practical results in sectors such as aerospace or military, sectors where cost or efficiency are often secondary to durability or robustness.

In Spain there are very few research groups active in this field and Mondragon Componentes and Centro Stirling have wanted to bring them together in a day to meet them, to get to know each other, to exchange experiences, to see situations in the different centres and analyse the applicability of this technology in your current and future products.  This first meeting brought together 16 people from the following entities: Universidad Nebrija, Universidad Politécnica Madrid, Universidad Málaga, Universidad Mondragón, Ikerlan, Centro Stirling, Mondragón Componentes, Eika and Copreci.  The contributions of M. Carmen Iniesta (U. Nebrija), Jaime Gros (visiting professor at U. Nebrija) and Efrén Moreno (U. Politécnica Madrid) should be specially thanked. Their presentations and the demonstrators they brought to us in the laboratories of Centro Stirling contributed to the discussion, on the ground, of various practical and theoretical aspects and simulations.  The contrast of experiences and applicability between the centres and companies present at this event augur future collaborations at both academic, research and industrial applications. (JG)