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CFD simulation of a Gifford-McMahon type pulse tube refrigerator.

Author(s) : BANJARE Y. P., SAHOO R. K., SARANGI S. K.

Type of article: Article

Summary

Pulse tube refrigerator has the advantages of long life and low vibration over the conventional cryocoolers, such as Gifford-McMahon (GM) and Stirling coolers because of the absence of moving parts in low temperature. This paper performs a two-dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation of a Gifford-McMahon type double inlet pulse tube refrigerator (DIPTR), operating under a variety of thermal boundary conditions. A commercial CFD software package Fluent 6.1 is used to model the oscillating flow inside a pulse tube refrigerator. Helium is used as working fluid for the entire simulation. The simulated DIPTR consists of a transfer line, an after cooler, a regenerator, a pulse tube, a pair of heat exchangers for cold and hot end, an orifice valve with connecting pipe, a double inlet valve with connecting pipe and a reservoir. The simulation represents fully coupled systems operating in steady-periodic mode. The externally imposed boundary condition is sinusoidal pressure inlet by user defined function at one end of the tube and constant temperature or heat flux boundaries at the external walls of the hot end and cold-end heat exchangers. The general results, such as the cool down behaviours of the system, phase relation between mass flow rate and pressure at pulse tube section and the temperature profile along the wall of the cooler are presented. The simulation shows the minimum decrease in temperature at cold-end heat exchanger for a particular combination of cryocooler assembly. The CFD simulation results are compared with available experimental data. Comparisons show that there is a reasonable agreement between CFD simulation and experimental results. [Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. Copyright, 2009].

Details

  • Original title: CFD simulation of a Gifford-McMahon type pulse tube refrigerator.
  • Record ID : 2011-0003
  • Languages: English
  • Source: International Journal of thermal Sciences - vol. 48 - n. 12
  • Publication date: 2009/12
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2009.04.013

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