Study of reverse Brayton cryocooler with Helium-Neon mixture for HTS cable

Cryogenic Engineering Conference 2017

材料科学;物理学

Dhillon, A.K.^1 ; Ghosh, P.^1

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, WB

721302, India^1

关键词: Commercial process simulators;    Engineering equation solvers;    Exergy efficiencies;    High temperature superconductor (HTS);    Temperature level;    Temperature range;    Thermodynamic efficiency;    Thermodynamic performance;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/278/1/012084/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/278/1/012084

学科分类：材料科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

As observed in the earlier studies, helium is more efficient than neon as a refrigerant in a reverse Brayton cryocooler (RBC) from the thermodynamic point of view. However, the lower molecular weight of helium leads to higher refrigerant inventory as compared to neon. Thus, helium is suitable to realize the high thermodynamic efficiency of RBC whereas neon is appropriate for the compactness of the RBC. A binary mixture of helium and neon can be used to achieve high thermodynamic efficiency in the compact reverse Brayton cycle (RBC) based cryocooler. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the thermodynamic performance of the RBC with a binary mixture of helium and neon as the working fluid to provide 1 kW cooling load for high temperature superconductor (HTS) power cables working with a temperature range of 50 K to 70 K. The basic RBC is simulated using Aspen HYSYS V8.6®, a commercial process simulator. Sizing of each component based on the optimized process parameters for each refrigerant is performed based on a computer code developed using Engineering Equation Solver (EES-V9.1). The recommendation is provided for the optimum mixture composition of the refrigerant based on the trade-off factors like thermodynamic efficiency such as the exergy efficiency and equipment considerations. The outcome of this study may be useful for recommending a suitable refrigerant for the RBC operating at a temperature level of 50 K to 70 K.