Numerical analysis of a novel coaxial annular tube convective heat switch

Abstract

Heat switches are commonly used in cryogenic instruments to provide thermal contact or isolation between the hot and cold masses over a temperature range from millikelvin to room temperature. This study presents a new type of convective thermal switch that implements an annular tube design replacing the twin-tube structure. To study the effects of geometry and operating parameters on thermal performance, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is developed. The results show that the designed heat switch provides a thermal conductance of 33.79 mW/K when the end temperatures are 4.2 K and 40 K. In addition, it can automatically change to thermal isolation mode with a residual thermal conductance of 0.19 mW/K. The thermal conductance is increased from 33.79 mW/K to 38.90 mW/K by extending the length of the inner tube. This novel heat switch holds promise for precooling the modern cryogen-free dilution refrigerator (DR) and adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR).