Cascading pulse tubes on a large diaphragm pressure wave generator to increase liquefaction potential

Cryogenic Engineering Conference 2017

材料科学;物理学

Caughley, A.^1 ; Meier, J.^2 ; Nation, M.^1 ; Reynolds, H.^2 ; Boyle, C.^2 ; Tanchon, J.^3

Callaghan Innovation, Christchurch

8053, New Zealand^1

Fabrum Solutions, Christchurch

8042, New Zealand^2

Absolut System, Seyssinet Pariset, 38170, France^3

关键词: Diaphragm pressure;    Higher efficiency;    Industrial customer;    Input power;    Liquefaction potentials;    Metal diaphragms;    Pulse tube cryocoolers;    Swept volume;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/278/1/012137/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/278/1/012137

学科分类：材料科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Fabrum Solutions, in collaboration with Absolut System and Callaghan Innovation, produce a range of large pulse tube cryocoolers based on metal diaphragm pressure wave generator technology (DPWG). The largest cryocooler consists of three in-line pulse tubes working in parallel on a 1000 cm3swept volume DPWG. It has demonstrated 1280 W of refrigeration at 77 K, from 24 kW of input power and was subsequently incorporated into a liquefaction plant to produce liquid nitrogen for an industrial customer. The pulse tubes on the large cryocooler each produced 426 W of refrigeration at 77 K. However, pulse tubes can produce more refrigeration with higher efficiency at higher temperatures. This paper presents the results from experiments to increase overall liquefaction throughput by operating one or more pulse tubes at a higher temperature to pre-cool the incoming gas. The experiments showed that the effective cooling increased to 1500 W resulting in an increase in liquefaction rate from 13 to 16 l/hour.