International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8

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International Journal of Refrigeration

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrefrig

Development of a spaceborne pulse tube cooler operating at 170K

Weifeng Deng a, Shaoshuai Liu b, Zhenhua Jiang b,∗, Lei Ding b, Yinong Wu b
a
College of Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China
b
Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Infrared Focal Plane Array (IRFPA) detector needs quite low dark noise for image detection. It can be
Received 14 October 2019 cooled to demanding low temperature by pulse tube cooler (PTC) because of low vibration and low elec-
Revised 18 January 2020
tromagnetic interference (EMI) at cold end. A high-capacity pulse tube cooler driven by a moving-magnet
Accepted 16 February 2020
linear compressor is presented in this paper. The regenerator and pulse tube are arranged in coaxial. The
Available online 19 February 2020
inertance tube and reservoir are used as passive phase shifter of the PTC. A numerical thermodynamic
Keywords: model is established to design and optimize overall performance of the pulse tube cold finger aimed
Pulse tube cooler for the best efficiency. Based on the principle of electric-mechanical-acoustic coupling field, a transient
Linear compressor co-simulation of the PTC is proposed. The mass of the PTC is less than 12 kg without electronic con-
Infrared detector troller. The oscillating linear compressor has a pair of opposite pistons to eliminate vibration and the
Thermoacoustics input electric input power is 400 W at maximum. A typical cooling performance of 50 W at 170 K has
Electromagnetic-mechanical-acoustic
been achieved with 228 W input power at reject temperature of 293 K, provided by water cooling. The
cosimulation
specified Carnot efficiency is 15.8%. Additionally, overall cooling performances of the PTC at 150K-200 K
are investigated by experiment, Not only could this PTC be used for space mission but also a promising
alternative to the domestic low temperature applications.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.

Développement d’un refroidisseur à tube à pulsation spatial fonctionnant à 170 K

Mots-clés: Refroidisseur à tube à pulsation; Compresseur linéaire; Détecteur infrarouge; Thermoacoustique; Cosimulation électromagnétique-mécanique-acoustique

1. Introduction
Recent needs in cooling at high operating temperatures (HOT)
range of 150 K–230 K have emerged with space missions such
as focal plane arrays (FPAs) and infrared detector. Such temper-
atures are achievable mostly by passive solutions with high baf-
fling and/or mirror sighting change, and generally large size. With
limit to weight/size and high agility, active cooling solution could
be considered for example the thermoacoustic coolers. Due to
the elimination of moving part in the cold finger, pulse tube
coolers have quite high efficiency and high reliability compared
with Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (G-M) machines (Ross, 2007;
Richardson and Evans, 1997).
The PTCs aimed working above 150 K have been devel-
oped widely all over the world during recent years. Air Liq-
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jiangzhenhua@mail.sitp.ac.cn (Z. Jiang).
uide developed a pulse tube cooler to cool infrared detectors for
microsatellite missions. The required cooler temperatures are
from 150 K to 200 K with a cooling power between 1W-3 W
(Chassaing et al., 2014). Lockheed Martin developed a micro pulse
tube cryocooler for Avionics and space applications. The cryocooler
supporting cooling requirements for emerging large, high operating
temperature (105–150 K) infrared focal plane array sensors with
nominal cooling loads of 0.85 W at 150 K with an input power of
10 W at 293 K ambient temperature (Olson et al., 2014; Nast et al.,
2016). Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems designed and tested
a very small, low vibration, high frequency cooler to be directly
integrated into space short wave infrared detector (SWIR). Despite
its small size the tested cooler is capable of providing near 5 W
of cooling at 150 K when rejecting heat to 300 K (Durand et al.,
2014). Moreover, a series of high performance cryocoolers are built
in Raytheon. The cooler provides 10 W at 150 K with ~100 W in-
put power (Conrad et al., 2016). The need for a compact pulse-
tube cryocooler for near 150 K apace applications has long been

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2020.02.028
0140-7007/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
2 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8

Nomenclature

A area (m−2 )
Bl specific electromagnetic force (N ·A−1 )
C compliance (m3 /Pa)
c damping coefficient (N·m−1 ·s)
E acoustic power (W)
e electromotive force (V)
F force (N)
f spatially averaged thermoviscous function
I current
√ (A)
i −1
k stiffness (N·m−1 )
L inductance () Fig. 1. The main structural drawing of coaxial PTC.

M mass (kg)
P amplitude of pressure (Pa) cooling for maximum electro-optical performance. In the range of
p pressure (Pa) 70K–150 K, 1W–4 W cooling power can be achieved with input
 big difference (Pa) power of 10W–60 W (Mai et al., 2016). During the 2015 SPIE De-
R acoustic resistance (Pa·s·m−3 ) fense, Security and Sensing exhibition, Thales Cryogenics presented
R electric resistance () an extension of their product range into the small form-factor do-
R mechanical resistance (kg ·s−1 ) main, aimed towards detector cooling at high operating tempera-
r viscous resistance coefficient (kg·m·s−1 ) tures (HOT), typically 120 K–150 K (Willems et al., 2016).
r heat resistance coefficient (W·m−1 ·K) As can be seen, the pulse tube coolers operated above 150 K
T temperature (K) are in great demand for infrared detectors. With the development
U volume flow rate (m3 ·s−1 ) of large FPA detectors, more CCDs or CMOSs are integrated into the
u velocity of the moving part (m·s−1 ) system. Therefore more cooling power are ever needed than before
x coordinate along sound propagation direction (m) to eliminate the self-induced dark noise by detectors (Rogalski and
x displacement Antoni, 2011).
x˙ velocity In recent work, a 170 K pulse tube cooler is designed, fabricated
ẍ acceleration and tested. Three sets of the PTCs are used together in a wide-field
X stroke of the single piston (m) survey telescope for large FPA detectors generating 100 W heat
Z acoustic complex resistance (Pa·s·m−3 ) which need to be cooled. Each one of the coolers provides a cool-
Greek letters ing power between 10W-60 W at 170 K. In this paper, a numerical
α phase angle model of the pulse tube cold finger is established to optimize the
γ ratio of isobaric to isochoric specific heats key assemblies including regenerator, pulse tube, heat exchanger
η acoustic power efficiency and phase shifter. A dynamic model of the PTC is proposed and
θ phase angle transient simulation was conducted on the characteristics of the
ρ density (kg·m−3 ) compressor under load. The effect of operating frequency on the
σ plandtl number specific Carnot efficiency is carried out by experiment compared
ϕ phase angle with calculations. Moreover, the effect of charging pressure on the
ω angular frequency (rad·s−1 ) cooling performance are experimentally investigated as well. In the
range of 150K–200 K, the overall performance of the PTC prototype
Subscripts is shown and the acoustic power efficiency is measured in the end.
acoust acoustic
c cross-section area through which the working gas 2. Design and optimization
flows in and out
elec electric The brief structure of the PTC mainly consisting of the lin-
g gas ear compressor, the pulse tube cold finger and the phase shifter
gas-c gas damping is shown in Fig. 1. Oscillating pressure wave is generated by a
gas-k gas spring moving-magnet linear compressor mainly composes of linear oscil-
m mean lating motors, cylinder assembly, moving parts and flexure springs.
mag electromagnetic To eliminate the vibration induced by piston oscillating, a pair of
mech mechanical linear motors are arranged in opposed direction and the phase an-
υ viscous gle of displacement is 180°. Each motor including excitation coil,
κ thermal moving permanent magnet and stator yoke. Differently from com-
1 first order mon pressure actuator whose motor cores are immersed in work-
2 second order ing refrigerant, the excitation coil and outer laminated stator are
isolated with working refrigerant thoroughly by welding the bob-
bin to the shell outside while quantities of longitudinal slots are
anticipated which result in the Thales cryocoolers being devel- cut in the inner solid stator to eliminate the contamination poten-
oped under European Space Agency (ESA). These cryocoolers can tial. A pair of circumferential mental bands is fabricated between
provide 0.5W–5 W cooling power at 60K–150 K (Arts et al., 2016). bobbin and outer stator feet to strengthen the laminated construc-
AIM developed a pulse tube cooler in cooperation with the Uni- tion. As the excitation coil is driven by single-phase alternating
versity of Giessen, High performance Infrared (IR) detector sys- current, the permanent magnets would move back and forth pe-
tems are mostly equipped with it to provide sufficient cryogenic riodically. The restoring force is provided by the axial stiffness of
 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8
the flexure springs while the clearance between piston and cylin-
der is maintained by the high radial stiffness.
The cold finger (including regenerator, pulse tube, heat ex-
changer and cold exchanger) and the phase shifter (including in-
ertance tube and reservoir) are connected with compressor by a
transfer tube to isolate vibration from the compressor. The re-
generator is filled with porous media for which some typical
numerical simulation can be used (Zhu and Matsubara, 2011;
Radebaugh, 2003). During its operation, the working gas flows
back and forth periodically, so some improvement are made to re-
duce irreversible thermal and hydrodynamic losses in the regen-
erator. According to operation temperature, stainless steel screens
are chosen as the matrix. To obtain high efficiency, pressure wave
is aimed to in phase of volume flow at the middle of regenerator
(Swift et al., 1999). The heat exchangers at both ends of the re-
generator are made of copper and quantity of slits are fabricated
to enhance the heat transfer. A pair of optimized flow straighters
are added in both inlet and outlet of the regenerator because ded-
icated design of a flow straighter can produce homogeneous flow
distribution and ever less flow loss (Zhang et al., 2012). The pulse
tube is a hollow tube made of 316 L stainless steel. Compres-
sion and expansion processes of working gas in the pulse tube
are adiabatic therefore a “gas piston” is generated in middle of the
tube to form a temperature gradient between the ends of pulse
tube. The “Enthalpy Phase” modulation was proposed by Rade-
baugh to analyze the phase shifting in pulse tube with inertance
tube and reservoir which helps to adjust phase angle of mass and
pressure to achieve satisfying cooling performance at the cold tip
(Radebaugh et al., 1986; Radebaugh, 1990). In addition, special at-
tentions are paid to optimization of the reservoir volume which
has a considerable effect on the PTC at variable operating temper-
atures (Zhang et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2017).
2.1. Numerical analysis of pulse tube cooler
The numerical simulation of the pulse tube cooler is employed
based on the classical thermoacoustic theory (Tominaga, 1989;
Wang et al., 2019). The thermodynamic principle and working pro-
cess of the PTC are interpreted with Rott’s acoustic approximation
proposed by Swift (1988). The general equations of momentum,
continuity and energy are as follow (Swift, 2003).
d p1 iωρm /Ac
=− U1
dx 1 − fυ
dU1 iωAc ( fκ − fυ ) dTm
=− [1 + ( γ − 1 ) f κ ] p 1 + U (2)
dx γ pm (1 − fυ )(1 − σ ) Tm dx 1
1  
E2 ( x ) = p1U˜1  cos φ
2 has a shorter length for the regenerator.
Where p1 and U1 are the oscillating pressure and volume flow
rate along the x direction, with the subscript 1 standing for both
amplitude and phase seen as complex notation. E2 is the acoustic
power flowing along the x direction, with the subscript 2 showing
that it is second order-the product of p1 and U1. The tilde denotes
the complex conjugation. E2 is a time average power because the
instantaneous power delivered along x is of no interest. ρ m is the
density of working gas and only ideal gases are considered. Tm is
the temperature of the solid material with the subscript m showing
that it is a time-average temperature, independent of time, y and
z. Ac is cross-section area through which the working gas flows in
and out. Considering the specific channel geometry of the pulse
tube, both the spatial-average function-fυ and fκ are introduced in
Eqs. (1) and (2). Details can be found in Swift (1988).
Based on the general model mentioned above, the regenera-
tor is design and optimized to achieve required cooling perfor-
mance and high enough efficiency. After that, the pulse tube, heat
3
65
0.315
60
COP(cooling power/acoustic power)
0.310
55
Net cooling power (W)
0.305
50
0.300
45
0.295
40
0.290
35
0.285
COP(cooling power/acoustic power) 30
Net cooling power
0.280
20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Regenertor length (mm)
Fig. 2. The COP and net cooling power vs. regenerator length.
exchangers, flow straighter and inertance tube are optimized to-
gether.
This PTC is designed in coaxial arrangement that the nomi-
nal inner radius of regenerator and the outer radius of pulse tube
are equal inherently. An appropriate temperature gradient would
be obtained For the PTC operating at 170 K by not that long re-
generator owing to small temperature span between it. Mass flow
through the regenerator would be obviously large as a result of
required cooling capacity. Therefore, L/D (length/diameter) of the
regenerator is relatively small that is difficult to achieve good tem-
perature homogeneity on the cross-section area. So as to solve
this problem, the hydraulic diameter of porous material should
be much smaller than the gas thermal penetration depth so that
full heat transfer between working gas and filled material is guar-
anteed timely. However too small hydraulic radius means quite
low porosity which cause high flow resistance and extra pressure
drop in the regenerator. Considering of the measured micro diam-
eter and porosity, 350-mesh stainless screens were chosen as the
filled matrix in regenerator. The initial charging pressure is set to
3.5 MPa and operating frequency 60 Hz for compact design. The in-
ner and outer diameters of regenerator are determined as 13.5 mm
and 26 mm given by the required cross-section area to achieve de-
(1) signed cooling capacity. According to one-dimension thermoacous-
tic theory, the influence of regenerator length on the COP (acous-
tic power divided by cooling power) is simulated and the result
is shown in Fig. 2. During optimization of regenerator length, tem-
perature homogeneity should not be neglected that the regenerator
(3) aimed to be long enough even though the ideal highest efficiency
Once the structure of regenerator is determined, optimization
is conducted on the pulse tube length to achieve the highest COP
shown as Fig. 3. The diameter of pulse tube is 13.5 mm which
equals the inner diameter of regenerator. It can be seen that during
40mm–90 mm of the pulse tube length, the COP increases while
the length increases.
Lengthening the pulse tube has a good effect on both flow con-
dition inside the tube and temperature homogeneity with annular
regenerator owing to the decrease in heat conduction along axial
direction. However extra length requires more phase shifting at the
heat end of pulse tube. It’s quite a challenge for the phase shifter
using inertance and reservoir. Fig. 4 shows the changing phase an-
gle vs the pulse tube length. Given that the COP only increases
slightly and the net cooing power is more than 50 W when pulse
tube length exceeds 64 mm, the trade-off length of pulse tube is
chosen as 64 mm finally. Following that the main heat exchangers
at both cold and hot ends of PTC, dual-segment inertance tube and
4 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8

0.324 50.6
COP(cooling power/acoustic power)

0.322 50.4

Net cooling power (W)

0.320
50.2
Fig. 5. The schematic diagram of electric-mechanical-acoustic of the linear
compressor.
0.318
50.0

0.316
49.8

0.314
COP(cooling power/acoustic power) 49.6
Net cooling power
0.312
40 60 80
Pulse tube length (mm)

Fig. 3. The COP and net cooling power vs. pulse tube length.

Fig. 6. The vector diagram of forces on the piston.

Phase angle at the inlet of inertance (°)

-52
investigated widely to achieve its highest efficiency (Gan et al.,
2013; Dai et al., 2011; Wakeland, 20 0 0). By analogy to electri-
cal transformer, the compressor could be modeled as electric-
mechanical-acoustic coupling field shown in Fig. 5. In this coupling
model, the electromagnetic energy and the mechanical energy are
interacted by Bl while the mechanical energy and the acoustic en-
-53
ergy are interacted by Z.
In order to obtain load force acted on the moving piston of
compressor for transient simulation, the electromagnetic force,
flexure spring force, damping force and gas pressure are analyzed
in a phase diagram together shown in Fig. 6. The displacement and
Phase angle at the inlet of inertance the velocity are represented on the horizontal and vertical axis re-
-54 spectively.
50 60 70 80 90 100
Based on linearized approximation (Ross et al., 1994), the load
Pulse tube length (mm) force of working gas on the surface of piston can be divided into
two componential forces, the gas spring force and gas damping
Fig. 4. The phase angle at the inlet of inertance vs. pulse tube length.
force. Being analogous to mechanical spring, the gas spring are
storing and releasing acoustic power alternately in every cycle
Table 1
Main structural parameters of the PTC. without doing work. The approximate stiffness of gas spring is
given by
regenerator length 47mm  
Fgas−k  Pc Ac cos θ
inner diameter of regenerator 13.5 mm
kgas−k = = (4)
outer diameter of regenerator 26 mm x x
pulse tube length 64 mm
inner diameter of pulse tube 13 mm Similarly, the gas damping force are doing work for transforma-
inertance-1 ϕ 3 × 0.8 (mm) tion between mechanical power and enthalpy. Acoustic power is
inertance-2 ϕ 4.5 × 2.4 (mm) consumed to obtain cooling power. The approximate damping co-
reservoir volume 250 cc efficient is given by
diameter of piston 26 mm
stroke of piston ±6 mm |Fgas−c | Pc Ac sin θ
cgas−c = = (5)
|x˙ | ωx
The stiffness of gas spring and coefficient of gas damping are
reservoir are optimized simultaneously to achieve a best efficiency combined with the stiffness of mechanical spring and mechanical
for the pulse tube cold finger. damping into the dynamic equation for compressor as follow
The main parameters of the PTC optimized dedicatedly are
listed in Table. 1. Mẍ + (cmech + cgas−c )x˙ + (kmech + kgas−k )x = Felec sin(ωt ) (6)
Based on Eq. (6), transient simulation can be employed to opti-
2.2. Design model of linear compressor mize the linear compressor operating with gas pressure load. Fig. 7
shows the process for numerical simulation of dynamic charac-
The pair of free pistons moving opposed to each other in com- teristics in the linear compressor. During the simulation, external
pressor is easily influenced by the acoustic load of pulse tube cold load plays an important role in both system resonance and piston
finger including pressure wave, mass flow rate and phase angle be- stroke under transient condition. Except for external load, an elec-
tween them. The impedance match of Stirling type PTC has been tromotive source is required to drive the model of linear motor in
 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8 5

Piston area
Electromotive source Displacement

Equation (4)
Electromagnetic
Pressure amplitude
simulation
Phase angle between External load Velocity
pressure and
displacement

Spring effect

Damping effect
Gas spring force Gas damping force Equation (5)

Mechanical damping
Mechanical spring force
force

pressure and displacement

Phase angle between
Piston area

amplitude

frequency
Pressure
Fig. 7. The transient simulation model of the PTC.

the compressor. The electromagnetic simulation is conducted using

Maxwell program published by Ansys Incorporation by which the
main structural parameters are determined. The simulation would
keep processing until a constant stroke of piston is obtained after
about 15 cycles. The displacement and velocity of the piston are
output finally. With modification of the compressor specifications,
for example permanent magnet length, turns of the excitation coil,
geometry of the magnetic cores and mass of moving part, the it-
eration is carried out again and again until the tolerance is less
than 0.01. Eventually, the compressor operates in resonance at op-
timized frequency for the PTC cold finger.

3. Experimental results and discuss

3.1. Experimental system

Fig. 8 shows the configuration of PTC with a pair of linear veloc-

ity differential transducers (LVDT) with an accuracy of ±0.1 mm at
both the ends of compressor and a pressure transducer at the inlet
of cold finger. Because of the far larger natural frequency than op-
erating frequency of the PTC, the error can be ignored legitimately.
The measured acoustic power can be obtained by
ω reject heat from hot end of cold finger and 10E-6° of vacuum is
Wacoust = 2 · · P · Ac · X · cos θ
2 maintained by a molecular pump.
The total measured acoustic power is double for the pair of
compressor pistons. Then the acoustic efficiency can be obtained
by the calculation. It’s one of the best way to evaluate the perfor-
mance of the compressor.
The alternative power source of which error is less than 0.5 W
is applied to drive the compressor. The temperature of cold tip is
measured by calibrated Pt100 resistance thermometer with an ac-
curacy of ±0.1 K and a pair of 30 W ceramic heaters of which
error is less than 0.1 W is used to measure the cooling power.
All of the measured data are acquired and processed using spe-
cial devices including signal amplifier, multi-meter, heating power,
oscilloscope, power meter and computer. The test bench is shown
Fig. 8. The picture of the PTC.
in Fig. 9. In addition, a laser water cooler is used to remove the
(7)
3.2. Effect of operating frequency on the PTC
Fig. 10 shows the dependence of COP on operating fre-
quency with charging pressure of 3.2 MPa and cooling capacity
of 50 W/170 K. In the range of 50Hz–70 Hz, the COP is changing
from 0.27 to 0.3 and the maximum point is 0.3 at 60 Hz in calcula-
tion while it has the same tendency during 55Hz–68 Hz in exper-
iment and the resonant operating frequency is 61 Hz with COP of
0.274. With reject temperature of 293 K and operating frequency of
61 Hz, the specific Carnot efficiency (COP divided by ideal Carnot
efficiency) of the PTC reaches 15.8% which is the highest efficiency
6 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8

Ceramic
Pt1000 heater
Vacuum pump
Pulse tube cold finger Data collection
Water-cooling
system Pressure tranducer Oscilloscope

LVDT-1 Linear compressor LVDT-2

Compressor

Power supply

Fig. 9. The schematic diagram of the test bench.

0.32 0.32
250
0.31 0.31 2.8MPa，170K，61Hz
COP(cooling power/acoustic power)

3.0MPa，170K，61Hz
calculations
0.30 0.30 200 3.2MPa，170K，61Hz
input electric power/W
0.29 0.29
150

0.28 0.28

100
0.27 0.27

0.26 0.26 50
experiments
0.25 0.25 10 20 30 40 50
46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80
cooling power/W
frequency (Hz)
Fig. 11. The input electric power vs cooling power for different charging pressures.
Fig. 10. The COP vs operating frequency.

300
200W input electric power
of the PTC at near 170 K cooling temperature with 50 W or more 250W input electric power
cooling power ever reported so far. The motor efficiency of com- 250
pressor is more than 92%.
cooling temperature/K

200

150
3.3. Effect of charging pressure on the PTC
61.2K
100
Charging pressure which has a considerable effect on both res-
onant frequency and cooling performance is related to gas load
on the compression surface of piston and volume flow in regen- 50
erator. Fig. 11 exhibits the dependence of input electric power on 59.5K
the cooling power at cold tip for different charging pressures with 0 2 4 6 8 10
an operating frequency of 61 Hz. As can be seen that the cooling
time/min
performance of 50 W/170 K is achieved with input electric power
228 W at charging pressure 3.0 MPa. In comparison, the input elec- Fig. 12. The cooling down process of the PTC.
tric power are 236 W with charging pressure 2.8 MPa while 231 W
with charging pressure 3.2 MPa. It is indicated that only 2% devi-
ation occurs in input electric power in charging pressure range of 3.4. Cooling performance of the PTC
2.8MPa–3.2 MPa. It is definitely appropriate for the spaceborne PTC
mentioned in this paper as result of the insensitivity to charging The cooling down process is shown in Fig. 12. After 5 min, a no-
pressure fluctuating caused by allowable leakage during long-life load temperature of 59.5 K is obtained with input electric power
operation in space. 250 W while 61.2 K with input electric power 200 W.
 W. Deng, S. Liu and Z. Jiang et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 115 (2020) 1–8 7

400
10W/W 7W/W 5.5W/W 5W/W 4.5W/W
4W/W
to quantity of heat in the compression chamber and the aftercooler
to reject. In this prototype, there are no water cooling channels
150K
350 160K 3.5W/W inside the compressor and aftercooler except for air-cooled and
170K water-cooled flange outside the PTC. As the result of thermal con-
300 180K 3W/W tact resistance between the aftercooler and flange, the heat cannot
input electric power/W

190K dissipate in time and temperature would increase accordingly. At

250 200K
this condition the irreversible heat loss would increase and the
200 2W/W
efficiency is unavoidably reduced. It is can be seen obviously in
Fig. 14 which shows the dependence of acoustic power efficiency
150 on the cooling power at 170 K.
According Eq. (7), the experimental input acoustic power effi-
100
ciency of the PTC is given by
50 ηacoust = Wacoust /Welec (8)

0 The acoustic efficiency deceases along with cooling power in-

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 creasing while 83.5% and 76.8% are achieved when the cooling
cooling power/W power are 10 W and 50 W respectively. So, the aftercooler and
water-cooled system to the compressor should be designed and
Fig. 13. The overall cooling performance in a range of 150K-200 K. optimized dedicatedly to increase the acoustic power efficiency for
high cooling capacity in the future work.
The dependence of input electric power on the cooling power
4. Conclusion
for different temperature on cold tip are shown in Fig. 13. The
charging pressure is 3.0 MPa and the fixed operating frequency
In this paper, a high capacity spaceborne pulse tube cooler has
is 61 Hz. At reject temperature of 293 K, the cooling power of
been developed to cool down the large FPA detectors in wide-field
50 W and 60 W are achieved with input electric power 228 W
survey telescope. Base on thermoacoustic theory, the main assem-
and 287 W respectively at 170 K. In addition, with a input electric
blies including regenerator, pulse tube, heat exchanger and iner-
power less than 350 W, all the cooling performance of 50 W/150 K,
tance phase shifter are optimized aimed to obtain the best effi-
60 W/160 K, 70 W/180 K and 80 W/190 K can be achieved in same
ciency. The coupling characteristic of the compressor and cold fin-
operation conditions. When cooling temperature is 200 K, a max-
ger are analyzed by electric-mechanical-acoustic coupling field in
imum cooling power of 90 W is provided by the PTC with input
similarity of electrical transformer. The designed specifications of
electric power 375 W and offset voltage 0.5 V. The PTC is able
the prototype are presented. The effects of operating frequency and
to achieve more than 400 W input electric power in maximum
charging pressure on COP and cooling performance are investigated
during its normal operation. The cooling performance of the PTC
by experiment. The mass of the PTC without electronic controller
is investigated compared with different specific power (defined as
is 11.8 kg in total and a no-load temperature of 59.5 K is achieved
cooling power divided by input electric power) exhibited as the
with input electric power 250 W. A cooling power of 50 W is pro-
dashed lines. It can be seen that with the cooling power increas-
vided at 170 K with input electric power 228 W at reject tem-
ing the input electric power increases linearly when cooling power
perature of 293 K while the specific Carnot efficiency is 15.8%.
is less than 40 W in a range of temperature 150K-200 K. When
In addition, the overall cooling performance of the prototype in a
cooling power is higher than 40 W, the input electric power would
temperature range of 150K–200 K is exhibited here. A maximum
be higher deviating from the linearized lines of specific power. For
cooling power of 90 W can be achieved with input electric power
example the specific power at 170 K is 4 W/W with cooling power
375 W. Not only could this PTC be used for space mission, but
less than 40 W while is approximately 4.8 W/W with cooling
is also a promising alternative to some domestic low temperature
power 60 W. With more cooling power produced, more input elec-
applications.
tric power needs to be consumed from the compressor which leads
Declaration of Competing Interest
90
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
88
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
86 influence the work reported in this paper.
acoustic power efficiency/%

84
Acknowledgments
82
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
80 dation Projects (No. 51806231), the Natural Science Foundation of
78 Shanghai (No. 18ZR1445600)

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