Recent Development Status of Stirling Type Pulse Tube Cryocooler for HTS

Abstract

Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (SHI) has been developing a high power stirling type pulse tube cryocooler. For the purpose of cooling high-temperature superconductor (HTS) devices, such as superconductor motor, SMES and current fault limiter, requested specifications from the devices to a cryocooler are compact size, light weight, high efficiency and high reliability. Especially, the cryocooler must be demanded COP > 0.1 in the efficiency. The experimental results of prototype pulse tube cryocooler were reported in June 2012 [1]. For an In-line type expander, the cooling capacity was 210 W at 77 K and the minimum temperature was 37 K when the compressor input power was 3.8 kW and the operating frequency was 49 Hz. Accordingly, COP was about 0.055. Moreover, for miniaturization a U type expander was tested and the performance is about 10 % less than that of an In-line type expander. After that, we have estimated that the cooling performance is influenced by the environment such as the effect of the pulse-tube inclination, the temperature and the flowing quantity of cooling water. The detailed results are reported in this paper.