Development and experimental investigation of Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) below 20 K; cold compressor and colder expander

Abstract

This research paper focuses on the experimental investigation of the Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator with cold compression concept. Due to this innovative feature, the pulse tube refrigerator can reach lower temperature effectively other typical single-stage Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerators. The experiment as a proof of concept is carried out to demonstrate the capability of the pulse tube refrigerator operating between 80 K and 20 K. The cold linear compressor, which is submerged in a liquid nitrogen bath, produces cold mass flow with the efficiency of 85% for all the frequencies. At the lowest temperature part of the pulse tube refrigerator, the no-load temperature of 18.7 K is recorded and the cooling power of 0.4 W is measured at 20 K. The experimental results are analyzed in dynamic and thermal aspects by using of the numerical model. The model can well explain how much losses are distributed in the system.

Experimental analysis of a pulse tube based new prototype for cells cryopreservation

“…With respect to the latter application, Hu et al designed and tested a pulse tube cryocooler producing approximately 1.2 kW of cooling at 120 K thus potentially condensing almost 300 normal cubic meter of boil‐off natural gas per day. Moreover, pulse tube refrigerators can also reach temperatures below 20 K as demonstrated by Park et al In their concept, a cold linear compressor submerged in a liquid nitrogen bath and a colder expander were considered achieving a no‐load temperature of 18.7 K and a cooling capacity of 0.4 W at 20 K.…”