Abstract A Pulse Tube Cooler and associated cooler drive electronics have been developed at Thales Cryogenics to provide cryogenic cooling for applications that are extremely sensitive to vibrations. Initially, the development focussed on the double inlet design because of its potential high efficiency. The DC flow arising in this design can decrease the performance significantly. Although this DC flow is successfully suppressed in prototype double inlet pulse-tubes, the solution proves to be too complex to be acceptable for large production quantities. It is therefore concluded that due to the DC flow, the double inlet design is not suitable for mass production, and the research further focussed on the development of an inertance type pulse tube. Optimisation of the U-shape inertance-type pulse tube results in a very reproducible cooling system that is easy to produce in large quantities. The cooling performance of 500 mW at 80 K, for 60 W of electrical input, is comparable to that of a double-inlet system without DC flow. Based on previous experience with the vibration reduction of Stirling coolers, a DSP-based cooler drive unit has been designed to reduce the vibration of the dual-opposed-piston flexure bearing compressor. The paper describes the results of a reduction method for DC flow, gives the design tradeoffs for the inertance pulse-tube, and describes the vibration control algorithm, hardware and results.


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    Title :

    Low Vibration 80 K Pulse Tube Cooler with Flexure Bearing Compressor


    Contributors:
    Bruins, P.C. (author) / Koning, A. (author) / Hofman, T. (author)

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2002-01-01


    Size :

    6 pages




    Type of media :

    Article/Chapter (Book)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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