A TWO-STAGE STIRLING CRYOCOOLER

DRIVEN BY OPPOSED PISTON LINEAR

COMPRESSOR FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS.

V.K. Bhojwani1, M.D. Atrey1, K.G. Narayankhedkar2, S.L. Bapat1

1
Mechanical Engineering department, Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay, Powai, Mumbai – 400 076, India

2
Veermata Jeejabai Technology Institute, Matunga, Mumbai, India

ABSTRACT

A two-stage, split Stirling cryocooler with a capacity of 2 W at 100 K and 0.5 W at

50 K is designed. A second order cyclic analysis is used to decide the final geometry of
the unit. A compressor with an opposed piston configuration is developed. A flexure
stack suspended piston and displacer are used. A moving coil linear motor is developed.
Sensors are installed for measuring strokes of pistons and displacer; and pressure at the
outlet of the compressor. A 10-channel oscilloscope provides the variations of parameters.
The load tests indicated that the cooling capacity is close to the design values. The power
input for the compressor is 110 W as compared to 69 W predicted by the analysis. The
experimental no-load temperature for the first stage is observed to be close to the predicted
temperature. Two identical expanders are developed to check the repeatability. For
Expander I, the temperatures attained for a load of 3.33 W on Stage I and 0.95 W on Stage
II are 106 K and 74 K, respectively, with a power input of 110 W. The corresponding
values for Expander II are 128 K and 66.7 K, respectively, with a power input of 105.6 W.

KEYWORDS: Two-stage Stirling cryocooler, Free piston free displacer, Stirling cycle

INTRODUCTION
ATTACHMENT I
Stirling
CREDITcryocoolers,
LINE (BELOW) with lowINSERTED
TO BE capacity ON requirements, have OF
THE FIRST PAGE found
EACH immense
applications
PAPER EXCEPT FOR ARTICLES ON pp. 152 - 159, 225 - 234, 277 - 283, 284 - Free-
for infra-red imaging in space due to valveless operation and high COP.
piston, free-displacer
290, arrangements
685 - 692, 1083 with
- 1090, 1359 a motorized
-1366, 1375 - 1382,displacer
1383 -(linear motor)
1391, 1467 make the
- 1474,
Stirling cryocoolers 1491reliable
- 1498, and
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ideal 1507
choice for space
- 1514, applications.
and 1629 - 1639 A two-stage

CP985, Advances in Cryogenic Engineering: Transactions of the

Cryogenic Engineering Conference—CEC, Vol. 53, edited by J. G. Weisend II
© 2008 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0504-2/08/$23.00

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Stirling cryocooler with cooling capacities of 2 W at 100 K at Stage I and 0.5 W at 50 K at
Stage II has been designed. Cyclic analysis by Atrey et al. [1] was used to predict the
geometry of the cryocooler. Various losses viz. regenerator ineffectiveness, shuttle heat
transfer, temperature swing loss, PV loss, loss due to heat conduction, pumping loss and
loss due to the pressure drop in various components, and mechanical efficiency were
calculated to determine the impact on refrigeration and power input. The respective losses
are subtracted from the ideal refrigeration and added to the ideal input power to get the net
refrigeration and net power input. Optimization of various geometric and operating
parameters was carried out to achieve the desired objective. TABLE 1 gives the
performance predicted by the cyclic analysis for the operating conditions and geometric
parameters given below:

Operating frequency 40 Hz
Diameter of the piston 22.5 mm
Stroke of the piston 10 mm
Stroke of the expander displacer 3 mm
Diameter of the displacer Stage I 17 mm
Length of the regenerator at Stage I 50 mm
Diameter of the displacer Stage II 9 mm
Length of the regenerator at Stage I 25 mm

TABLE 1 shows the effect of pressure on the performance of the cryocooler. It can
be observed that at pressures of 15 bar and higher, the desired performance can be
obtained. Even though the requirement of the cryocooler is 2 W at Stage I and 0.5 W at
Stage II, cooling capacity of the order of 3.151 W is desired at Stage I and 2.496 W at
Stage II at 50 K. Due to variation of the heat capacity of the regenerator material at
temperatures of the order of 50 K, larger margin has been kept for Stage II. FIGURE 1 and
FIGURE 2 give the cross-section of the opposed piston linear compressor and the two
stage expander driven by linear motor.

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS

Two almost identical expander units have been fabricated. However, the performance
of only one unit is discussed in this paper. A split Stirling cryocooler has been developed.
Linear motors with moving coil arrangement have been used for the opposed piston
compressor as well as the displacer. The pistons and the displacer are suspended on two
stacks of flexure bearings each. The cryocooler was instrumented for the measurements of
piston and displacer strokes, pressure variation, and temperature measurements at both
stages. The output of all the sensors was fed to a high resolution 10-channel oscilloscope.
The results are discussed below.

TABLE 1. Result of cyclic simulation for various charge pressures

Pressure, bar 12 13 14 15 16
Ideal RE (Stage– I), W 6.66 7.058 7.78 8.143 8.88
Ideal RE (Stage– II), W 2.59 2.748 3.02 3.171 3.46
Ideal Power, W 34.44 36.54 40.18 42.16 45.92
Net Refrigerating effect (Stage-I), W 1.97 2.264 2.89 3.151 3.8
Net Refrigerating effect (Stage-II), W 2.0 2.098 2.41 2.496 2.83
Total power input, W 57.2 60.74 66.01 69.42 74.82

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 Pistons

LVDT

Flexure
Flexure stack 1
stack 2 Linear motor delivery

FIGURE 1. Cross-section of the opposed piston linear compressor

Two-stage
displacer
High vacuum
pump

High pressure gas

from compressor
Flexure stack 1

Linear motor

Flexure stack 2

FIGURE 2. Cross-section of the two-stage expander driven by a linear motor

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Experimental results

At a 16 bar charge pressure, a minimum temperature of 81.5 K at Stage I and 43 K at

Stage II were observed. However, these temperatures stabilized only at 86 K at Stage I and
45 K at Stage II. The power input to the compressor and expander was 118.8 W and
3.28 W respectively. The stroke of the compressor was measured as 7.15 mm and 2.42
mm for the expander.

Load Test – Stage I

Stable temperatures of 94 K at Stage I and 45 K at Stage II were achieved when a heat

load of 1.33 W was applied on Stage I. It can be observed from FIGURE 3 that at a heat
load of 2 W, a stable temperature of 98 K can be achieved at Stage I. When the heat load
was increased to 3.33 W at Stage I, the temperature reached 106 K at Stage I. The load
characteristic of Stage I is almost a straight line.

Load Test – Stage II

Next, heat load was applied to Stage II only. The results of this test are shown in
FIGURE 4. It can be seen that the temperature that can be achieved at a design heat load
of 0.5 W at Stage II is 56.1 K. When an electrical heat load of 0.95 W was applied to the
heater on Stage II, the Stage II temperature increased to 66 K.

110

3.33, 106
105
Temperature of stage I, K

2.83, 103
100
2.33, 100
2, 98
95 1.83, 97

1.33, 94
90
Heat load applied on stage I, W

85 0, 86

80
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Heat load applied on stage I, W

FIGURE 3. Load characteristics of Stage I

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 70

0.95, 66
65
Temperature at stage II, K

60
0.5, 56.1

55 0.45, 55
Heat load on stage II, W

50

45 0, 45

40
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Heat load applied on stage II, W

FIGURE 4 Load characteristics of Stage II

Load Test - Heat load applied to both the stages simultaneously

Initially the heat loads of 1.33 W and 0.95 W were applied on Stage I and Stage II
simultaneously. After this, the heat load on Stage I was increased as shown in the
TABLE 2. The temperature for Stage II increased from 66 K to 74 K as a result of the
change in heat load on Stage I. The same is marked in the FIGURE 5.

Optimized performance

Experiments were conducted at 15, 16 and 17 bar and up to the limiting power of
120 W to the compressor and 3 W of power input to the expander with various mechanical
phase shifts and frequencies. The best results are given in TABLE 3 and FIGURE 6. No
load temperatures achieved, with both the heaters active, were 80 K at Stage I and 46.2 K
at Stage II, at a frequency of 39 Hz, charge pressure of 15 bar, mechanical phase difference
of 76 degrees, displacer stroke of 2.98 mm and piston stroke of 10.37 mm. When the
Stage II heat load was 0.95 W and the Stage I heat load was 1.33 W, the temperatures
attained at the first and the second stage were 91 K and 61.4 K, respectively. At this point,
the heat load was increased in steps of 0.5 W at Stage I and the temperature variation is
shown in FIGURE 6.

TABLE 2. Load characteristics of the two-stage cryocooler (loads applied to both stages)

Stage I load, W 0 1.33 1.83 2.33 2.83 3.33

Stage II load, W 0 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95
Stage I temp. K 86 94 97 100 103 106
Stage II temp. K 45 66 68 70 72 74
Compressor power, W 118.8 118.8 118.3 117.8 117.4 116.9

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 120

Stage I
100
2.33, 100 2.83, 103 3.33, 106
1.83, 97
1.33, 94
80 0, 86 0.95, 72 0.95, 74
Temperature, K

0.95, 68 0.95, 70
0.95, 66
Stage II
60
0, 45
Effect of heat load at stage I on stage II temperature
40
with fixed load of 0.95 W at stage II.

20 Heat load applied on stage I, W

0
0 0.5
FIGURE 5. Load characteristics for the two stages
Heat load aplied on stage II, W
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Heat Load, W

TABLE 3. Load characteristics of the two-stage cryocooler (loads applied to both stages)

Stage I load, W 0 1.33 1.83 2.33 2.83 3.33

Stage II load, W 0 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95
Stage I temp. K 80 91 95 98.4 103 108
Stage II temp. K 46.2 61.4 63.7 66.2 68.5 70.8
Compressor power, W 120.0 119.4 118.9 118.4 117.9 117..4

COMPARISON OF THEORETICAL ESTIMATES WITH EXPERIMENTAL

DATA

The parameters corresponding to the experimentally optimized conditions were input

as data in the cyclic analysis program and the cooling capacities were determined. The
program estimated a cooling capacity of 3.02 W at 96 K at Stage I as compared to 2 W at
96 K observed experimentally at 15 bar. Similarly, the estimated cooling capacity at Stage
II from the analysis program is 2.526 W at 58 K as compared to 0.5 W at 58 K observed
experimentally.

This indicates that the safety factor for estimation of cooling capacity at Stage I turns
out to be 3.02/2 = 1.5 times whereas for Stage II a factor of 2.526 W/ 0.5 W = 5.05 results.
This is an important conclusion for designing cryocoolers of 50 K temperature range using
cyclic analysis.

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 120
3.33, 108
2.83, 103
2.33, 98.4
100 1.83, 95
1.33, 91
0, 80
80
0.95, 70.8
Temperature, K

0.95, 66.2 0.95, 68.5

0.95, 61.4 0.95, 63.7
60
0, 46.2
Effect of heat load at stage I on stage II temperature
with fixed load of 0.95 W at stage II.
40

20
Heat load on stage I, W
Heat load on stage II, W
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Heat load, W
FIGURE 6. Load characteristics for the two stages under experimentally optimized conditions

CONCLUSIONS

The cryocooler provided a cooling capacity of 3.33 W at 106 K for Stage I. However,
when the cryocooler was fully loaded (i.e. 2 W at Stage I and 0.5 W at Stage II) the
temperatures achieved were 96 K and 58 K at Stage I and Stage II, respectively
(interpolated values). Thus, it can be said that even though the cryocooler satisfies the full
heat load requirement of Stage I, Stage II still needs some modification by way of an
increase in the second stage expansion volume.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge the support received from ISAC, Indian Space Research
Organization, Bangalore towards this work.

REFRENCES
1. Atrey, M. D., Bapat, S. L. and Narayankhedkar K. G., “Cyclic simulation of Stirling cryocoolers”,
Cryogenics, 29, pp. 341-347, (1990).

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