Research of Two-Stage Co-Axial Pulse Tube Coolers Driven by a Valveless Compressor

Abstract

Multi-stage pulse tube refrigerators driven by Stirling-type compressors have potential application in space and military. Here a 16 Hz, 55 cc rotary drive compressor was used to do two-stage pulse tube cooler research. The largest input power was less than 700 W. Experiments and analyses included two kinds of pulse tube cooler structures: 1) totally co-axial, and 2) first stage co-axial and second stage U-type. For the totally co-axial structure, the lowest temperature reached was only 75.7 K. However, for the other structure (first-stage co-axial and second-stage U-type), a lowest temperature of 25 K was reached after optimization and with a radiation shield. When no radiation shield was used for the second stage, the lowest temperature was 28K and the cooling capacity at 33K was 0.5 W.