Evaluation method for effect of active vibration control on cooling performance of Stirling cooler

• Published in: Cryogenics (Guildford) 2021-07, Vol.117, p.103308, Article 103308
• Main Authors: Shigeto, Shuhei, Tanaka, Kosuke, Sato, Yoichi, Shinozaki, Keisuke, Mitani, Shinji
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Active control; Coolers; Cooling efficiency; Error analysis; Mechanical cooler; Performance evaluation; Satellite; Stirling cooler Vibration control; Vibration control
• ISSN: 0011-2275; 1879-2235
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cryogenics.2021.103308

•Active control of the vibrations emitted by the chiller may affect cooling performance.•A method to measure and evaluate cooling performance with control is proposed.•Changes in cooling performance that have not been quantitatively assessed before are discussed. Active vibration control has been devised to suppress the vibration of spacecraft coolers. Although active control is effective in suppressing vibration, it may affect the cooler’s performance. In this paper, the effect of a control signal on the cooling performance of a two-stage Stirling cooler is quantitatively evaluated for the first time by comparing the effect of the added control signal with the case without the signal. The main indicators of the cooling performance are the input power to the cooler, the cooling power and temperature of the first and second stages, and the compressor temperature. We propose evaluating the cooler's performance by the relative Carnot efficiency after equalizing the compressor temperature, and the temperature of each stage before and after the control signal is applied. The proposed method of evaluation was applied to the measured data indicating the cooling capacity of a two-stage Stirling cooler under control, and it was confirmed from the experiments that the effect of adding the control signal on the cooling efficiency was less than 1%, which is less than the measurement error. By comparison, the disturbance was suppressed by 55%.