Performance analysis and exergy assessment of an inertance pulse tube cryocooler

Abstract

The world is facing the problems of the energy crisis. Thermal analysis and energy conservation of the engineering devices help to improve their performance. This paper conducted an experimental investigation for the performance analysis and exergy assessment of an Inertance Pulse Tube Cryocooler (IPTC) that uses working fluid -helium operated between 80 K cold end side temperature and room temperature.The variation of the different performance parameters like the effect of charge pressure, pulse tube volume, pulse tube length, etc., and its effect on the refrigerating effect isdescribed graphically. Exergy analysis involves the use and concepts of energy andexergy balances, enthalpy, entropy, and exergy calculations at various stages in thesystem. Exergy analysis identifies the zones of key exergy destruction that occurs insidethe system, which afterward can be subjected to its minimization to amend the systemperformance. The actual exergy efficiency value calculated for the overall system is 21.30 %. The decreasing order of exergy efficiency among the different components is acompressor (38.79 %), a hot end heat exchanger (6.19 %), regenerator, pulse tube andinertance tube (6 %), and cold end heat exchanger (2.70 %).