Suppression of performance degradation due to cold-head orientation in GM-type pulse tube refrigerator

Abstract

This paper describes experimental study on GM-type pulse tube refrigerator (PTR). In a PTR, the pulse tube is only filled with working gas and there exists secondary flow due to a large temperature difference between cold-end and warm-end. The stability of secondary flow is affected by orientation of cold-head and thus, the cooling performance is deteriorated by gas mixing due to secondary flow. In this study, a single stage GM-type pulse tube refrigerator is fabricated and tested. The cooing performance of the fabricated PTR is measured as varying cold-head orientation angle and the results are used as reference data. Then, we divided interior space of pulse tube into three segments, and fixed the various size of screen mesh at interface of each segment to suppress the performance degradation due to secondary flow. For various configuration of pulse tube, no-load test and heat load test are carried out with the fixed experimental condition of charging pressure, operating frequency and orifice valve turns. From experimental results, the fine screen mesh shows the effective suppression of performance degradation for the large orientation angle, but the use of screen mesh cause the loss of cooling capacity rather than the case of no insertion into pulse tube. It should be compromised whether the use of screen mesh in consideration of the installation limitation of a GM-type pulse tube refrigerator.