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Investigation on Precooling Effects of 4 K Stirling-Type Pulse Tube Cryocoolers

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Abstract

Stirling-type pulse tube cryocoolers (SPTCs) working at liquid-helium temperatures are appealing in space applications because of their promising advantages such as high reliability, compactness, etc. Worldwide efforts have been put in to develop SPTCs operating at liquid-helium temperatures especially with helium-4 as the working fluid. Staged structure is essential to reach such low temperatures. Generally, both the regenerator of the last section and the pulse tube together with the phase shifter are precooled by its upper stage or by external cold source to a low temperature of around 20 K. However, the precooling effects on the regenerator and the pulse tube are synthetic in previous studies, and their independent effects have not been studied clearly. In this manuscript, the precooling effects on the regenerator and on the pulse tube together with the phase shifter are tested independently on a unique-designed precooled SPTC. The tested precooling temperature is between 13.3 K and 22 K, and the no-load refrigeration temperature gets down to 3.6 K. Further analyses and numerical calculations have been carried out. It is found that the influence on the regenerator is remarkable, which is different from previous conclusions. It is also found that the precooling effects on the pulse tube are relatively weak because of the large pressure-induced enthalpy flow of a real gas working at the temperatures near to the critical point. Furthermore, the phase shifting capacity is analyzed with two cases and with both helium-4 and helium-3 as working fluids, and it keeps quite constant after optimizing the frequency and the precooling temperature for each case. The investigation on these independent effects will provide valid reference on the precooling mechanism study of SPTCs working down to liquid-helium temperatures.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51506152) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (inter-disciplinary program) under the contract No. kx0080020173427. Great support from Prof. L.M. Qiu and Prof. Z.H. Gan from Zhejiang University along with Prof. S.W. Zhu from Tongji University on this research is acknowledged. Revisions of this manuscript by the anonymous reviewers and the editors (Prof. Lin Wang and Prof. Na Zhang) are acknowledged. Revision of this manuscript about English writing by Prof. D. Roundy (emeritus) from Tongji University is acknowledged. Prof. Y. Long from University of Science and Technology Beijing is acknowledged for providing the regenerator material. The authors also appreciate Prof. Dr. Y.H. Huang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University for providing the property data of 3He.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Qiang Cao, Zimu Li, Mingkai Luan, Zheng Sun, Xiao Tang & Peng Li

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Vehicle Aerodynamics and Vehicle Thermal Management Systems, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Qiang Cao

  3. Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200083, China

    Zhenhua Jiang

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Li Wei

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  1. Qiang Cao
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Correspondence to Qiang Cao.

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Cao, Q., Li, Z., Luan, M. et al. Investigation on Precooling Effects of 4 K Stirling-Type Pulse Tube Cryocoolers. J. Therm. Sci. 28, 714–726 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-019-1168-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-019-1168-7

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