Raspet Visits China

In May, Dr. Richard Raspet , Professor of Physics and Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Physical Acoustics was a guest  and speaker at the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, hosted by Dr. Tao Jin and Dr. Ke Tang of the Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics. Originally, Dr. Jin had hoped to have Dr. Raspet present at a special session for Thermoacoustics at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Hong Kong, but when scheduling conflicts made that impossible, Dr. Raspet agreed to travel to Dr. Jin’s home university to discuss possible joint research efforts on inert gas-condensing vapor thermoacoustics. Dr. Raspet and Dr. Will Slaton of the University of Central Arkansas developed the theory and the results are very promising for refrigeration, but as yet, no one has built a prototype device.

Dr. Raspet presented two seminars to the Chinese researchers; “Inert Gas-Condensing Vapor Thermoacoustics: An Introduction,” and “Inert Gas-Condensing Vapor Thermoacoustics: Transport Equations and Refrigeration.” He also met with individual graduate students to discuss their research and had an opportunity to catch up with one of his own graduate students-Dr. Jiao Yu, a 2009 Ole Miss graduate who made the 2000 mile trip from her new post at Liaoning University of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering to see her old mentor and show him some the sights of her home country.

While obviously excited the possible research interactions with his Chinese colleagues, when asked the highlight of the trip, Dr. Raspet fondly recalled exploring  different cultural sites and the delicious farewell banquet in the university dining hall, “I finally learned to use chopsticks correctly!”