Effect of Porosity on the Performance of an GM-Type DIPTR Using CFD

Abstract

The present research goals to establish a better reliable as well as stable simulation of pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) by commercially available computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software. The operation of double inlet PTR (DIPTR) is mostly depending upon a regenerator. Regenerator plays a major role in producing cooling effect in pulse tube refrigerator. For the analysis purpose of DIPTR, literature has been taken. unconventional multi-component 3D model prepared for the analysis. CFD simulation using FLUENT to investigate the performance of PTR in detail for fluid flow and heat transfer pattern in the entire system of PTR. As the model is 3-D more complexities increase. First of all, a robust numerical method has been established to simulate an experimentally investigated GM pulse tube, which attains 64.7 K. Secondly, the observed computational load has been reduced to one-tenth by introducing sectional analysis Using the proposed methodology, a given GM pulse tube has been investigated to estimate the optimal porosity to attain lowest cryogenic temperature such as 40.89 K, which in real time used to be handled by hit and trial method. Different type of cases has been examined by applying different value of porosity which varies from 0.4 to 0.9 and other parameters are remains unaffected. The GM-type pulse tube refrigerator improves a cooling effect on cold end by changing the porosity value of 0.7. The demonstrated detailed and extensive numerical investigations can be considered as first of its own kind. The pressure variation in the PTRs during the process, also investigated.KeywordsDIPTRCFDPorosity3D modellingAnsys-17