Numerical and experimental study on a 20 K high capacity thermally-coupled Stirling-type pulse tube cooler

Xupeng Ding, Xiaotao Wang, Yibing Zhang, Shengli Huang, Chao Yan, Zhengkun Li, Wei Dai and Haibing Li

Energy, 2025, vol. 316, issue C

Abstract: The Stirling-type pulse tube cooler, due to its high reliability and low vibration at the cold end, is increasingly applied in many fields such as superconductivity and zero-boil-off liquid hydrogen storage system. However, the cooling power and the compactness of the 20 K Stirling-type pulse tube coolers still need to be improved for certain applications. This paper introduces a high capacity 20 K thermally-coupled pulse tube cooler, which uses ambient displacers to maximize the performance. The prototype aims to obtain larger cooling power by pre-cooling the regenerator and the pulse tube of the low-temperature stage. High frequency operation and the orthogonal arrangement of the displacers and compressor pistons make the system more compact. The trends of system performance with respect to average pressure, operating frequency, and pre-cooling temperature were analyzed, leading to the development of a prototype. The experimental results show that the minimum no-load temperature is 11.5 K, and a cooling power of 8.4 W at 20 K can be obtained when an input electrical power of the system is 2256 W. The relative Carnot efficiency, in terms of acoustic power and electrical power, reached 7.03 % and 5.18 %, respectively.

Keywords: Pulse tube cooler; 20 K; High capacity; Thermally-coupled; High-frequency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:316:y:2025:i:c:s036054422500194x

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134552

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