US 5,659,173 A · Converting acoustic energy into useful other energy forms

Abstract

Sonoluminescence is an off-equilibrium phenomenon in which the energy of a resonant sound wave in a liquid is highly concentrated so as to generate flashes of light. The conversion of sound to light represents an energy amplification of eleven orders of magnitude. The flashes which occur once per cycle of the audible or ultrasonic sound fields can be comprised of over one million photons and last for less 100 picoseconds. The emission displays a clocklike synchronicity; the jitter in time between consecutive flashes is less than fifty picoseconds. The emission is blue to the eye and has a broadband spectrum increasing from 700 nanometers to 200 nanometers. The peak power is about 100 milliWatts. The initial stage of the energy focusing is effected by the nonlinear oscillations of a gas bubble trapped in the liquid. For sufficiently high drive pressures an imploding shock wave is launched into the gas by the collapsing bubble. The reflection of the shock from its focal point results in high temperatures and pressures. The sonoluminescence light emission can be sustained by sensing a characteristic of the emission and feeding back changes into the driving mechanism. The liquid is in a sealed container and the seeding of the gas bubble is effected by locally heating the liquid after sealing the container. Different energy forms than light can be obtained from the converted acoustic energy. When the gas contains deuterium and tritium there is the feasibility of the other energy form being fusion, namely including the generation of neutrons.

Claims96

Dependent claims

A method of converting acoustic energy into a different energy form comprising:

creating a gaseous bubble in a liquid in a container,
locating the bubble in a liquid under the action of acoustic energy applied to the liquid,
compressing and decompressing the bubble under the action of resonating pressure applied to the liquid by the acoustic energy,
increasing the resonating pressure to generate from the bubble an emission of the different energy form, and
sensing selectively at least one of a characteristic of the different energy form, bubble or acoustic energy and feeding back changes in the characteristic to regulate the generation of acoustic energy thereby to sustain the emission generation of the different energy form.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Converting acoustic energy into useful other energy forms

Life of this patent

Converting acoustic energy into useful other energy forms

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims96