Theoretical And Experimental Investigation On A Stirling Type Single-stage Pulse Tube Cryocooler

Pulse tube cryocooler is a new type of regenerative cryocoolers which has the advantage of compact structure, high reliability, low vibration and long life due to having no moving parts at the cold end. Much attention has been paid to the development of pulse tube cryocoolers driven by a linear compressor which has wide application prospect and much progress has been made. In this paper, theoretical and experimental investigation has been carried out on a 80 K single-stage pulse tube cryocooler.1. Numerical simulation based on a regenerator modeling software known as REGEN3.2 has been made, which includes the effect of charging pressure, frequency, pressure ratio at the cold end, the phase angle between mass flow and pressure and the matrix of the regenerator on the performance of the regenerator.2. A single-stage Stirling type pulse tube cryocooler driven by a linear compressor produced by RICOR has been designed and fabricated based on REGEN3.2 and a transmission line theory used for the design of inertance tube. Based on the conservation of mass and energy, a phasor diagram represents both the magnitude and phase angle of the mass flow in different components of the cryocooler was obtained.3. Experimental investigation on the pulse tube cryocooler driven by a linear compressor was carried out. A lowest no-load temperature of 58 K was obtained and the cooldown time to 80K is 8.5min. The cryocooler could provide 4.4 W cooling power at 80 K and the efficiency of Carnot is 5.23%, which is close to the Stirling cryocooler (6.38%). A cooling power of 5.2 W at 80 K was achieved when the electrical input power was increased to 290 W.