Srinivas Vanapalli

120 Hz pulse tube cryocooler for fast cooldown to 50 K

A pulse tube cryocooler operating at 120 Hz with 3.5 MPa average pressure achieved a no-load temperature of about 49.9 K and a cooldown time to 80 K of 5.5 min. The net refrigeration power at 80 K was 3.35 W with an efficiency of 19.7% of Carnot when referred to input pressure-volume (PV or acoustic) power. Such low temperatures have not been previously achieved for operating frequencies above 100 Hz. The high frequency operation leads to reduced cryocooler volume for a given refrigeration power, which is important to many applications and can enable development of microcryocoolers for microelectromechanical system applications

Pressure drop of laminar gas flows in a microchannel containing various pillar matrices

The pressure drop of gas flows in a microchannel filled with a dense pillar matrix was investigated with specific attention to a pillar shape. Pillars of height 250 µm and aspect ratio of about 10 were etched in silicon using an optimized Bosch deep reactive ion etching process. The pressure drop head-loss coefficient due to compression and expansion of gas at the inlet and outlet of the pillar matrix was estimated to be about 1.4 for an opening ratio of 10. A comparison of friction factor correlations for circular pillar cross-sections agreed rather well with the correlations proposed for the macroscale. Experimentally determined friction factor correlations for several pillar cross-sections for Reynolds numbers in the range of 50–500 are presented. Among the various pillar cross-sections considered, sine-shaped pillars have the lowest friction factor. These pillar structures with low pressure drop but a rather large wetted area can be used quite effectively as regenerative materials enabling the development of microcryocoolers.

Micromachined cryogenic cooler for cooling electronic devices down to 30 K

Cryogenic temperatures are required for improving the performance of electronic devices and for operating superconducting sensors and circuits. The broad implementation of cooling these devices has long been constrained by the availability of reliable and low cost cryocoolers. After the successful development of single-stage micromachined coolers able to cool to 100 K, we now present a micromachined two-stage microcooler that cools down to 30 K from an ambient temperature of 295 K. The first stage of the microcooler operates at about 94 K with nitrogen gas and pre-cools the second stage operating with hydrogen gas. The microcooler is made from just three glass wafers and operates with modest high-pressure gases and without moving parts facilitating high yield fabrication of these microcoolers. We have successfully cooled a YBCO film through its superconducting transition state to demonstrate a load on the microcooler at cryogenic temperatures. This work could expedite the application of superconducting and electronic sensors and detectors among others in medical and space applications

MODELING AND EXPERIMENTS ON FAST COOLDOWN OF A 120 Hz PULSE TUBE CRYOCOOLER

High frequency operation of a pulse tube cryocooler leads to reduced regenerator volume, which results in a reduced heat capacity and a faster cooldown time. A pulse tube cryocooler operating at a frequency of 120 Hz and an average pressure of 3.5 MPa achieved a no-load temperature of 50 K. The cooling power at 80 K was about 3.35 W with a cooldown time from 285 K to 80 K of about 5.5 minutes, even though the additional thermal mass at the cold end due to flanges, screws, heater, and thermometer was 4.2 times that of the regenerator. This fast cooldown is about two to four times faster than that of typical pulse tube cryocoolers and is very attractive to many applications. In this study we measure the cooldown time to 80 K for different cold-end masses and extrapolate to zero cold-end mass. We also present an analytical model for the cooldown time for different cold-end masses and compare the results with the experiments. The model and the extrapolated experimental results indicate that with zero cold-end...

Clogging in micromachined Joule-Thomson coolers: Mechanism and preventive measures

Micromachined Joule-Thomson coolers can be used for cooling small electronic devices. However, a critical issue for long-term operation of these microcoolers is the clogging caused by the deposition of water that is present as impurity in the working fluid. We present a model that describes the deposition process considering diffusion and kinetics of water molecules. In addition, the deposition and sublimation process was imaged, and the experimental observation fits well to the modeling predictions. By changing the temperature profile along the microcooler, the operating time of the microcooler under test at 105 K extends from 11 to 52 h.

High frequency pressure oscillator for microcryocoolers

Microminiature pulse tube cryocoolers should operate at a frequency of an order higher than the conventional macro ones because the pulse tube cryocooler operating frequency scales inversely with the square of the pulse tube diameter. In this paper, the design and experiments of a high frequency pressure oscillator is presented with the aim to power a micropulse tube cryocooler operating between 300 and 80 K, delivering a cooling power of 10 mW. Piezoelectric actuators operate efficiently at high frequencies and have high power density making them good candidates as drivers for high frequency pressure oscillator. The pressure oscillator described in this work consists of a membrane driven by a piezoelectric actuator. A pressure ratio of about 1.11 was achieved with a filling pressure of 2.5 MPa and compression volume of about 22.6 mm(3) when operating the actuator with a peak-to-peak sinusoidal voltage of 100 V at a frequency of 1 kHz. The electrical power input was 2.73 W. The high pressure ratio and low electrical input power at high frequencies would herald development of microminiature cryocoolers.

Cooling a low noise amplifier with a micromachined cryogenic cooler

The sensitivity of antenna systems increases with increasing active area, but decreases at higher noise figure of the low-noise amplifier (LNA). Cooling the LNA locally results in significant improvement in the gain and in lowering the noise figure of the LNA. Micromachined Joule-Thomson (JT) coolers can provide a cryogenic environment to the LNA. They are attractive because they have no cold moving parts and can be scaled down to match the size and the power consumption of LNAs. The performance of a LNA mounted on a JT microcooler with dimensions of 60.0 × 9.5 × 0.72 mm(3) is reported in this paper. The microcooler is operated with nitrogen gas and the cold-end temperature is controlled at 115 K. The measured net cooling power of the microcooler is about 43 mW when the LNA is not operating. The power dissipation of the LNA is 26 mW, with a supply voltage of 2 V. At room temperature the noise figure of the LNA is 0.83 dB and the gain lies between 17.9 and 13.1 dB, in the frequency range of 0.65 and 1.05 GHz. Upon cooling to 115 K, the noise figure drops to 0.50 dB and the increase in gain varies in the range of 0.6-1.5 dB.

Experimental study of a pulse tube cold head driven by a low frequency thermal compressor

Cryocoolers operating at liquid helium temperature span a number of application domains, such as cooling of superconducting magnets, SQUID devices etc. GM type cryocoolers are widely used at liquid helium temperature but with shortcomings of using an oil-lubricated compressor that require regular maintenance and rotary valves that reduces the efficiency of the cryocooler. We are developing an alternative system that makes use of a Vuilleumier type thermal compressor. The system consists of a Stirling type pulse tube cryocooler that provides a cold heat sink to a thermal compressor. The thermal compressor generates pressure wave to drive a second pulse tube cold head. We experimentally studied the influence of pre-cooling temperature and frequency on the performance of the pulse tube cold head. The lowest recorded temperature is 24.3 K with a pressure ratio of 1.18 and a frequency of 3 Hz. In this paper, the design of the cooling system and preliminary experimental results are presented

Characterization of a two-stage 30 K Joule-Thomson microcooler

Micromachined cryocoolers are attractive tools for cooling electronic chips and devices to cryogenic temperatures. A two-stage 30 K microcooler operating with nitrogen and hydrogen gas is fabricated using micromachining technology. The nitrogen and hydrogen stages cool down to about 94 and 30 K, respectively, using Joule–Thomson expansion in a restriction with a height of 1.10 μm. The nitrogen stage is typically operated between 1.1 bar at the low-pressure side and 85.1 bar at the high-pressure side. The hydrogen stage has a low pressure of 5.7 bar, whereas the high pressure is varied between 45.5 and 60.4 bar. In changing the pressure settings, the cooling power can more or less be exchanged between the two stages. These typically range from 21 to 84 mW at 95 K at the nitrogen stage, corresponding to 30 to 5 mW at 31–32 K at the hydrogen stage. This paper discusses the characterization of this two-stage microcooler. Experimental results on cool down and cooling power are compared to dynamic modeling predictions

The Effect of a Magnetic Field on the Melting of Gallium in a Rectangular Cavity

ABSTRACT The role of magnetic field and natural convection on the solid–liquid interface motion, flow, and heat transfer during melting of gallium on a vertical wall is reported in this paper. The classical geometry consisting of a rectangular cavity with uniform but different temperatures imposed at two opposite side walls, insulated top, and bottom walls is considered. The magnetic field is imposed in the horizontal direction. A numerical code is developed to solve for natural convection coupled to solid–liquid phase transition and magnetic effects. The corresponding streamlines and isotherms predicted by the numerical model serve to visualize the complicated flow and temperature field. The interplay between the conduction and convection modes of heat transfer stimulated by the combination of the buoyancy-driven flow and the Lorentz force on the fluid due to the magnetic field are studied. The results show that the increase of Rayleigh number promotes heat transfer by convection, while the increase of Hartmann number dampens the strength of circulating convective currents and the heat transfer is then mainly due to heat conduction. These results are applicable in general to electrically conducting fluids and we show that magnetic field is a vital external control parameter in solid–liquid interface motion.