Abstract Since 1997 Signaal Usfa has been working on the development of high reliability cryocoolers. These coolers have been developed with the objective of eliminating the lifetime determining factors of conventional cryogenic tactical coolers. The intention of this study was the development of a family of cryocoolers that could be used to cover a large range of cooling powers. Today, these developments have resulted in a new range of flexure-bearing cryocoolers currently available at Signaal Usfa, with cooling performances between 0.5 and 3 W at 80K and estimated lifetimes of more than 20,000 hours MTTF. The basis for the extended lifetime of these coolers is our unique flexure-bearing compressor with moving-magnet technology. Inside the linear dual-opposed-piston compressor both moving pistons are fully supported at the back and front of the piston by optimized flexure bearings. With this flexure-bearing suspension, side loads on the piston seals are avoided. A proper alignment procedure ensures no contact between piston and cylinder during operation, resulting in the absence of wear of the piston coating, which normally determines the lifetime of a cooler. The moving-magnet technology, as applied in our flexure-bearing compressor, has several major advantages over moving-coil linear motors as applied in most conventional linear compressors. First of all, the coils, known to be a possible source for gas contamination, can be placed outside the hermetically-sealed compressor housing containing the working gas. Avoiding any synthetic materials inside the cooler reduces the risk of gas contamination during the life of the cooler. The fact that the coils can be placed outside the hermetically-sealed compressor also means that no glass feedthroughs are required. In this way, risks of glass feedthrough leakage due to extreme temperature shocks or mechanical shocks are no longer present. Finally, the absence of moving coils in the compressor design also means that flying leads to supply power to the coils are no longer present. Several qualification tests have been performed on flexure-bearing cryocoolers with different sizes of coldfingers, resulting in technical specifications currently available at Signaal Usfa on all presented cooler types in the above-mentioned range. A flexure-bearing cooler for applications requiring over 6 watts cooling power at 80K is currently under development as well. Tests performed on a first prototype of this cooler have been successful, with a measured cooling performance of more than 8W at 80K for a 23°C ambient temperature, with 150 Wac of input power.


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    Title :

    High Reliability Coolers under Development at Signaal-USFA


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2002-01-01


    Size :

    8 pages




    Type of media :

    Article/Chapter (Book)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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