Thomas J. Hofler
Jay A. Adeff
Dept. of Phys., Naval Postgrad. School, Monterey, CA 93943
The experimental results from a thermoacoustic cryocooler project will be reported. Four different versions of the cryocooler were constructed and the coldest temperature achieved was 180 K. While this temperature result fell short of our goals, a number of interesting discoveries were made. One engine performed very much worse than the linear theory predicted, the pitfalls associated with compact and efficient acoustic resonators were discovered, and lower SWR standing waves were found to enhance engine performance. [Work supported by NRL and ONR.]