High Efficiency Operation of a 4K-Gifford-McMahon Cryocooler without Rotary Valve with a Metal Bellows Compressor

Traditional Gifford-McMahon cryocoolers are operated with an integrated rotary valve which regulates the compressed Helium supply and return into and from the cold head. Theory predicts that about 50% of the input energy is lost in this rotary valve [1]. In this work we removed the rotary valve from...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IOP conference series. Materials Science and Engineering 2024-05, Vol.1301 (1), p.12142
Main Author: Höhne, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cold
Cryogenic cooling
Pulse tubes
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Summary:Traditional Gifford-McMahon cryocoolers are operated with an integrated rotary valve which regulates the compressed Helium supply and return into and from the cold head. Theory predicts that about 50% of the input energy is lost in this rotary valve [1]. In this work we removed the rotary valve from a Sumitomo RDK-101G cold head and drove the Gifford-McMahon cryocooler in Stirling-mode directly with a slow-moving metal bellows compressor at around 1.2Hz. We could demonstrate that the energy efficiency of the cryocooler system improves by almost 50%. As a result, we were able to operate this cold head with 650W of total electrical input power with a cooling power of 140mW at 4.2K on the second stage and no-load temperatures of below 40K on the first stage. This corresponds to a COP of 215mW/1000W which one of the highest COPs reached for small and medium size 4K GM and pulse tube cryocoolers.
ISSN:1757-8981
1757-899X
DOI:10.1088/1757-899X/1301/1/012142