Abstract
The Vuilleumier (VM) refrigerator, known as heat driven refrigerator, is one kind of closed-cycle Stirling type regenerative refrigerator. The VM refrigerator with power being supplied by liquid nitrogen was proposed by Hogen and developed by Zhou, which shows great potential for development below 10K. This paper describes the experimental development of a VM cryocooler operating below 8K, which was achieved by using liquid nitrogen as a heat sink of middle cavity. The regenerator was optimized by using a part of metallic magnetic regenerator material Er3Ni to replace the lead sphere and a no-load temperature of 7.8K was obtained. Then all the lead spheres were replaced by Er0.6Pr0.4 material and a no-load temperature of 7.35K was obtained, which is the lowest temperature for this kind of refrigerator reported so far. The cooling power at 10K is about 500mW with a pressure ratio near 1.6 and a charge pressure of 1.8MPa. Especially, the magnetic material Er0.6Pr0.4 was found to be a potential substitution for the conventional lead.
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