Performance Investigation of Pulse Tube Refrigerator with Different Regenerative Material

Abstract

Cryocooler is a device which is used to produce low temperature by compression and expansion of the gas. In the last few years there has been increasing demand of cryocoolers for cooling of infrared sensors used on satellite and in tanks, missiles, high temperature super conductors, low noise amplifiers, superconducting quantum interference devices etc. As pulse tube refrigerator has no moving parts in its cold section, and when driven by a liner compressor, has the potential of achieving higher reliability and lower vibrations than other cryo refrigerators (cryocoolers). The performance of a pulse tube refrigerator is depend on the type of the configuration of pulse tube refrigerator and frequency of the working gas. In addition, the performance is also depends on regenerator material and the matrix of that material which is used in pulse tube refrigerator as well as on pressure drop through regenerator. The regenerator is one of the most important components of the pulse tube refrigerator. To achieve better performance of regenerator, regenerator materials should be properly selected, normally phosphor bronze, stainless steel, lead and copper are used as regenerator materials, to achieve low temperature. Main objectives of this dissertation work is to obtain no load characteristic of pulse tube refrigerator with different regenerative materials like S.S. and phosphor bronze with different wire mesh size for basic pulse tube refrigerator, orifice pulse tube refrigerator and double inlet pulse tube refrigerator. In Chapter 1 the brief review of the introduction of cryogenics and pulse tube refrigerators is given. Evolution of pulse tube refrigerators and review of analytical, experimental, CFD work reported in the literature, brief of regenerative materials and objective of present work is given in Chapter 2. Various components used in the experimental test setup and operation instructions for BPTR, OPTR and DIPTR have been described in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 includes the results obtained by varying different parameters like cycle time, regenerative materials and its wire mesh size have been given. In Chapter 5 the conclusions & future scope of work has been explained.