Cascade Pulse Tube
Cascade Pulse Tube
Cascade Pulse Tube
Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics
Research paper
A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Recovering the expansion power in pulse tube cryocooler is of great utility in improving cooling efficiency. Using
Pulse tube cryocooler a second-stage cooler after a primary cooler to produce extra cooling power is an effective way especially when
Displacer the cooling temperature is not very low. In the configuration, the two coolers are connected by a displacer which
Power recovery is used as a phase shifter. In this paper, experimental investigations were conducted to study this system. Firstly,
Cascade cryocooler
the performance of the overall system and separated cooler was respectively presented. To better understand the
displacer, phase relation, mechanical resistance and displacement were then clarified. In addition, the power
consumption distribution of the cascade cryocooler was discussed. Finally, both numerical and experimental
comparisons were made on the displacer-type and tube-type cryocooler. The experimental results show that the
displacer-type cryocooler has superior performance due to the better phase-modulation capability and less
power loss. With the input electric power of 1.9 kW and cooling temperature of 130 K, the overall system
achieved a cooling power of 371 W and a relative Carnot efficiency of 24.5%.
1. Introduction implemented by Gan et al. when they realized it was hard to apply the
Swift’s configuration in practice. When compared with a single-stage
No moving components at the cold head endows Stirling-type pulse SPTC, 33% increase in cooling efficiency was achieved at 233 K [9,10].
tube cryocooler (SPTC) with remarkable advantages of high reliability A cascade SPTC using a displacer as a phase shifter was proposed
and low vibration, which shows great prospects in applications such as and designed by our group [11]. The previous work mainly focused on
cooling infrared sensor, high temperature superconductivity, and small- cryocooler design and theoretical analysis, so only a few preliminary
scale gas liquefier. However, when compared with Stirling cryocooler experiment was conducted at a quite limited working condition which
which has a theoretical efficiency of Carnot efficiency, the intrinsic is aimed at verifying the feasibility of configuration; Furthermore, the
lower efficiency is an obstacle for the extensive usage of the SPTC. This compressor design has not been considered in the previous work, as it
is because an inertance tube is always employed in the SPTC at the only concerned on performance of the cryocooler; Finally, there is a
expense of transferring all the expansion work into a waste heat. For lack of theoretical and experimental comparisons with tube-type cas-
this reason, recovering the expansion power is of great help to improve cade cryocooler. For these reasons, this paper presents the detailed
the cooling efficiency. experimental results of the overall system at different working condi-
There are two feasible methods to recovering the expansion power. tions and compares results with tube-type cryocooler. Firstly, the
One approach, which has been widely studied, is to recover the power compressor was carefully designed and the system performance is
from a feedback loop between the cryocooler and the compressor [1–7]. presented. The phase relationship, mechanical resistance and dis-
This configuration is endowed with a theoretical efficiency of Carnot placement of the displacer are then investigated. Furthermore, power
efficiency. Another approach, which lacks sufficient study, is to use a consumption distribution of the cryocooler is presented. Finally, com-
cascade SPTC. In this configuration, the expansion work is recovered parison is made between the cascade cryocoolers using two types of
into the cascading cooler to produce extra cooling power. The Carnot phase shifters.
efficiency is theoretically obtained when cascading infinite stages. In
2011, a two-stage cascade SPTC, with a secondary cooler directly
connected after a quarter-wavelength primary pulse tube, was proposed
and demonstrated by Swift et al. [8]. In 2015, an improved version was
⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: jyhu@mail.ipc.ac.cn (J. Hu), ecluo@mail.ipc.ac.cn (E. Luo).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2018.09.006
Received 18 April 2018; Received in revised form 24 July 2018; Accepted 12 September 2018
Available online 14 September 2018
0011-2275/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
Table 1 Table 2
Detailed geometries of the coolers. Main parameters of the displacer.
Cooler Component Diameter Length Other dimension Piston Diameter Expansion piston 70 mm
Compression piston 43 mm
First-stage MAHX 75 64 26% in porosity, 0.4 in channel
width Spring Constant Mechanical Spring 27 kN/m (Axial)
REG 70 300-mesh stainless-steel screen 4014 kN/m (Radial)
CHX 30 18% in porosity, 0.25 in Gas Spring 33 kN/m
channel width
Space Volume Expansion space 46 cm3
PT 37 156 1.2 in wall thickness
Back space 890 cm3
FS 3 40-mech copper screen
Compression space 43 cm3
Second- MAHX 40 40 20% in porosity, 0.4 in channel
Moving Mass 2.3 kg
stage width
REG 60 300-mesh stainless-steel screen
CHX 25 10% in porosity, 0.25 in
channel width cascade SPTC. The dimensions of the two coolers are listed in Table 1.
PT 22 80 0.8 in wall thickness In the linear compressor, the working gas oscillates due to the re-
FS 3 40-mech copper screen ciprocating motion of the pistons, thus electric power is converted into
acoustic power; The input acoustic power is firstly consumed by the
Listed parameters are in millimeters.
first-stage cooler to obtain primary cooling power; The expansion
power from the first-stage cooler is then transferred to the second-stage
cooler to produce the secondary cooling power; The expansion power
from the second-stage cooler is not recovered. The displacer and in-
ertance tube are used to modulate the phase relation in the cryocooler.
Fig. 2 shows the profile of the displacer. Six springs are fixed by
screw bolts. To ensure sufficient space for deformation of the spring,
there is a flat gasket between two springs. The connecting rod is con-
nected to the springs as well as two pistons, thus undergoing same
oscillation. The main parameters of the displacer are listed in Table 2.
Clearance seal between the piston and the cylinder wall is 0.018 mm.
The natural frequency of the displacer is 15.6 Hz, which deviates far
from the working frequency of 55 Hz. The piston displacement is lim-
ited within 6 mm according to the stress analysis of the springs. The
total axial spring constant is simultaneously produced by mechanical
spring and gas spring from the back space. The gas spring constant is
2
deduced by γ PmA (γ is the specific heat ratio, Pm is the mean pressure, A
VDB
Fig. 2. Profile of the displacer. is the area difference on two piston sides and VDB is the back space
volume of the displacer).
2. Experimental system
2.2. Experimental measurements
2.1. Experimental setup
The measuring points of oscillating pressure and temperature are
Fig. 1 shows a schematic drawing and experimental setup of a shown in Fig. 1. Five high-precision dynamic pressure sensors produced
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J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
1 26%
Wb = |p ||Udis _in | cosθpU 110 K
2 3 (8) 25% 130 K
150 K
1 24%
Wc = |p ||Udis _out | cosθpU
2 5 (9)
23%
overall
where θpU is the phase difference between the pressure wave and the
volume flow rate. 22%
We define several efficiency to present the performance of different 21%
assemblies. The compressor electric-to-acoustic efficiency ηcom is de-
fined as: 20%
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J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
42%
400
40%
350
38%
(Qc1+Qc2) /W
300
cas_cooler
36%
250
110 K-Experiment 110 K-Experiment
34% 110 K-Simulation 200 110 K-Simulation
130 K-Experiment 130 K-Experiment
32% 130 K-Simulation
150
130 K-Simulation
150 K-Experiment
150 K-Experiment
150 K-Simulation 150 K-Simulation
30% 100
400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
Wa(Watts) Wa (Watts)
(a) Relative Carnot efficiency (b) Overall cooling power
Fig. 4. Performance of the cascade cryocooler under different cooling temperature and input acoustic power (Experiment & Simulation).
70% 25%
110K
68% 130K
150K
66% 20%
Qc2/Qc1
com
64%
62% 15%
110 K
60% 130 K
150 K
58% 10%
800 1200 1600 2000 2400 800 1200 1600 2000
We(Watts) We(Watts)
Fig. 5. Efficiency of the compressor (Experiment). Fig. 7. Cooling-power recovery ratio (Experiment).
50% 1.24
Tc=130 K st
1 cooler
nd
2 cooler
40%
Pressure ratio
1.20
1 /2 _cooler
st
1 cooler
nd
30% 2 cooler
nd
st
1.16
20% Tc=130 K
1.12
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
We(Watts) We(Watts)
Fig. 6. Efficiency of the 1st cooler and 2nd cooler (Experiment). Fig. 8. Pressure ratio at the inlet of the two coolers (Experiment).
temperatures of 150 K, 130 K and 110 K, the highest cooling-power oscillation; while adding with the expansion- and compression-spaces,
recovery ratio were 21.9%, 18.2%, 14.7% respectively. Fig. 8 shows the phase of the volume flow rate also changes. Fig. 9 shows the
pressure ratio at the inlets of the 1st cooler and 2nd cooler. The pressure pressure waves at two sides of the displacer. The pressure wave phase
ratio increased with the increased input electric power. When the input changes 106.8 degree under the working condition. Fig. 10 shows the
electric power was 1.9 kW, the pressure ratios for two coolers exceeded phase difference between the pressure wave and volume flow rate at
1.225. two sides of the displacer. The reversed phase relation verifies that the
displacer modulates the phase relation, which makes it possible for the
3.2. Phase relation at the displacer efficient power recovery.
In an efficient pulse tube cryocooler, the pressure wave always lags 3.3. Mechanical resistance and displacement of the displacer
the volume flow rate at the inlet of the cooler, contrary to the phase
relationship at the outlet of the pulse tube. So, it is necessary to employ The displacer is a crucial component not only for phase shifting but
a phase shifter while coupling two coolers. As for the two-sides at also for power transmission. To have less power loss, the mechanical
displacer piston, only the phase of pressure wave changes while the resistance of the displacer should be low. Actually, the mechanical re-
phase of volume flow rate remains the same due to the same piston sistance is determined by the available technique and processing level,
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J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
4 6.0
Inlet of displacer 110 K
Outlet of displacer 130 K
5.5 150 K
Pressure wave/ bar
Xdis / mm
5.0
0
4.5
-2
4.0
106.8° Wa=1110 W
Tc=130 K
-4
0.012 0.016 0.020 0.024 0.028 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100
Time (Seconds) We (Watts)
Fig. 9. Pressure waves at two ends of the displacer (Experiment). Fig. 12. Displacement of the displacer (Experiment).
90 Compressor
Tc=130 K
f =55 Hz st
1 Cooler
60 We=1.7 kW Displacer
o
Phase difference/
nd
Tc=130 K 2 Cooler
30 43.22%
T0=293 K 3.4%
0
Inlet of displacer 18.66%
Outlet of displacer
-30
-60
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 34.72%
We (Watts)
Fig. 13. Experimental results of power consumption distributions of the cryo-
cooler (Experiment).
Fig. 10. Phase difference at two ends of the displacer (Experiment).
power to the input electric power. The compressor and the 1st cooler
20 87% which produced the primary cooling power was the most significant
contributors to the power consumption. The displacer took a small
15 110 K_Displacer Efficiency 84%
130 K_Displacer Efficiency portion of power consumption, so it was efficient in power transmis-
150 K_Displacer Efficiency 81% sion.
10
600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100
We (Watts)
4. Comparison with the tube-type cascade cryocooler
Fig. 11. Mechanical resistance and power loss ratio of the displacer
(Experiment). In a cascade cryocooler, the phase shifter between two adjacent
coolers plays important roles in both phase shifting and power trans-
mission. To obtain high efficiency, it is necessary to have good phase-
which is hard to estimate in advance. Fig. 11 shows the displacer effi-
modulation ability as well as low power loss. In the previous studies
ciency ηdis (ratio of Wc to Wb) and mechanical resistance Rmech (cal-
2(W − W ) [8–10], as shown in Fig. 14, long tube was usually employed between
culated by Rmech = (ωXb )2c ) of the displacer. As the input power in- two coolers as a phase shifter. This configuration maintains the ad-
dis
creasing, mechanical resistance increased within a small range from vantage of no moving parts and high reliability. In this section, both
23 kg/s to 35 kg/s. The displacer efficiency is within the ranges of numerical and experimental investigations are conducted to compare
83–88%, which means it is efficient to transmit acoustic power. Fig. 12 the displacer-type cryocooler with such tube-type cryocooler.
shows the displacer displacement under different cooling temperatures The comparison is based on the same cooler dimensions and same
and input acoustic power. Increasing trend of the displacement was working conditions. That is to say, the mean pressure was 3 MPa,
observed at the increased input acoustic power and cooling tempera- system frequency was 55 Hz, temperature of cooling water was 293 K
tures due to the larger transferred power. To limit the piston dis- for two ambient heat exchangers, and the cooling temperatures of two
placement, the input acoustic power should be controlled at higher cold heads were 130 K. The input acoustic power to the cryocooler is
cooling temperature. If the displacement is beyond allowable value, the 2 kW. Since the tube-type cryocooler has different coupling character-
stress will be too large to break the spring. In the experiment, the dis- istic with the compressor because of its different acoustic impedance,
placer displacement was limited below 6 mm. our major comparison target was the performance of the cascade
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J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
650 628 W
42%
Dtube=14 mm Dtube=14 mm
Displacer-type 39.4 %
600 Dtube=16 mm
39% Dtube=16 mm Displacer-type
Dtube=18 mm Dtube=18 mm
(Qc1+Qc2) /W
Dtube=20 mm Tube-type
550 36% Dtube=20 mm Tube-type
cas-cooler
33%
500
30%
450
27%
400
24%
5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5
Ltube (Meters) Ltube(Meters)
Table 3
Performance of two types of cryocoolers (Simulation). Input acoustic power is
2 kW, frequency is 55 Hz, cooling temperatures for both coolers are 130 K.
Displacer-type Tube-type
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J. Xu et al. Cryogenics 95 (2018) 69–75
38% 500
36%
400
(Qc1+Qc2) /W
cas_cooler
34% 110K-Experiment
110K-Simulation
130K-Experiment 300
32% 130K-Simulation
110K-Experiment
150K-Simulation
150K-Simulation 110K-Simulation
200 130K-Experiment
30% 130K-Simulation
150K-Simulation
150K-Simulation
28% 100
400 800 1200 1600 2000 2400 400 800 1200 1600 2000 2400
Wa (Watts) Wa (Watts)
400 Displacer-type
recovery is experimentally studied. A displacer sandwiched by two
Qc1 Qc2 coolers acts both roles of phase modulation and power transmission.
Tube-type With the input electric power of 1.9 kW and cooling temperature of
Tc=130 K
300 130 K, it achieved an overall relative Carnot efficiency of 24.5% and
cooling power of 371 W. The compressor electric-to-acoustic efficiency
was 65.8% and cryocooler relative Carnot efficiency was 37.2%. The
Q c/ W
200 cooling-power recovery ratio was higher than 17% at 130 K and ex-
Displacer-type
ceeded 20% as increasing the cooling temperature to 150 K. Reversed
Tube-type
phase relation was observed in the displacer, which is mainly con-
100 tributed by the change of the pressure-wave phase. The power loss of
the displacer occupied only 4–6% of the input acoustic power, which is
efficient in transmitting acoustic power. When compared with the tube-
0 type cryocooler, the displacer-type cryocooler experimentally improved
580 W 1249 W the cooling efficiency by 20%. This is attributed by the better phase-
Wa modulation capability and less power loss of the displacer.
nd st
2 Cooler Displacer 1 Cooler This work was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (Contract No. 2017YFB0903603) and
Power comsumption ratio
75